


These Nights are Endless

by orphan_account, whiskeyandspite



Category: Clash of the Titans (2010), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Oral, PWP, Prostitute AU, Subtle Manipulation, Voyeurism, accidental scorpions, intercrural, there is smut and there is a lot of it, this is basically Hannigram with a different name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-09-11
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:51:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Soldiers have passed him by before, none had ever bought him. He has had rich men and angry men, men from the temple he had served who remembered him hungrily. But soldiers were cruel, fearless and cold.</i>
</p><p>  <i>He does not meet the eyes of his new master again.</i></p><p>Hannibal / Clash of the Titans AU - Hannibal (Draco) visits a whore house in the market before leaving with Perseus to battle the Kraken. He sees Will and learns he is a former hierodule, sold to the whore house after he came of age and began to bore the temple. He’s now sold to men who like to torture and beat the erômenos</p><p>After much sass from his caretaker, Hannibal spends a pretty penny to take Will for the night. Will is terrified and expectant of torture and pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much 3 chapters of porn. So... something to tide you over for a few weeks, loves.
> 
> Comments and critique always welcome! We will update on Wednesdays (or Tuesday nights if one of us is away, like part 1)
> 
> Title is from Homer's Odyssey, and the rest continues as:
> 
> "But we two, sitting here in the shelter, eating and drinking,  
> shall entertain each other remembering and retelling  
> our sad sorrows. For afterwards a man who has suffered  
> much and wandered much has pleasure out of his sorrows.”

Argos is awash in celebration and sin of late. It suits the guard captain fine, so long as the sins are of the hedonist sort and there isn't any fighting in the streets. They have, after all, declared war on the gods. Much as Cephus seemed convinced that there was nothing there to war on, the guard captain has seen enough things that he would not dare make so sweeping a declaration.

He simply obeys. He knows there will be a fight - many, if he is very lucky, but for now there are other ways to get the tension and aggression out. As per custom, he leaves his armor and sword behind, carries only his knife, and finds a house of ill repute. 

There are many in the city, enough that he can move on from one if they recognize him after a time. This place is new, marble hung with rugs, dark and smokey and filled with skin when he steps inside, pushing aside the curtain. These were captures - the remains of the defeated, where Argonian forces had triumphed and brought back to serve however they could.

Pale, delicate skin and pink extremities, soft with captivity but hard and hating in the eyes. He draws straight and surveys what is displayed. Today he is not sure what will truly catch his eye - he is hungry, but not so much so he cannot be adventurous.

Will is nursing his lip when he sees him. He’s not unfamiliar with the soldiers of the city, many come by the brothel in search of their pleasure. Some find it, some find retaliation and leave satisfied regardless. They have never shown an interest in him, not enough to buy. And certainly why should they? They were hard men, battle-weary and proud. They wanted soft breasts and pliant lips, neither of which Will possesses.

His lips rarely part in anything but curses and anger, since the temple had seen fit to remove him. then, they had parted in song, on prayer, occasionally even in pleasure. Will does not remember the time well, it seems like another lifetime entirely.

He doesn’t shift away from the gaze as some of the girls do when it passes them. He has had cruel men. He hasn’t had much experience with others. His face is too soft, eyes wide and hair long like a woman’s, but he can endure more, fights back harder, doesn’t lie down until he’s forced to. The sport of that attracts the wrong sort of men. The only way Will can set their glances passing him by is by meeting them like any man would. Power with power.

He draws his knuckle over the budding bruise gently and blinks. The soldier will pass him by, as others have.

On most other days, he would satisfy himself with a girl and be done - but these had eyes that weren't living fire, but dead, cruel ice when they turned their gazes on him. Still others turn away entirely - hoping to avoid notice. Too tired or too undesirous to care what they might be missing.

Only one gaze meets his amongst the options that does not seem wholly deadened. The guard turns wordlessly, and steps out - perhaps never to be seen again. In truth, he is entering negotiations with the proprietor - a round woman who asks ever higher prices the more she is sure that the guard actually wants her stray temple boy.

In hopes of dissuading him, or perhaps because she senses a weakness - the boy was more trouble than he was worth. All mouth and no idea what properly to do with it to better please a soldier or wealthy patron. She spins it first as displeasing... then unbroken when she senses a profit. They meet in the middle on price, when the soldier points out that it is by his efforts such spoils are marched back to the city, and it's within his rights to enjoy them.

He waits. She fetches Will.

"Don't displease him," she warns, the boy was pretty but otherwise useless, too resisting to be pleasing. "If you come back with another set of bruises I'll sell you to the fattest, cruellest merchant I can find that bends your direction, do you understand me?"

He has had nearly the same warning every time, but there is always the chance that this time, she may mean it.

“I’m not to blame if they enjoy watching me bleed.” Will replies. His tone is biting but quiet, and his jaw works in an unmistakeable twitch of fear that he tries carefully to hide. Soldiers have passed him by before, none had ever bought him. he has had rich men and angry men, men from the temple he had served who remembered him hungrily. But soldiers were cruel, fearless and cold.

He does not meet the eyes of his new master again.

Will isn’t small, he has just learned to hold himself in such a way as to appear to be. But he, at least, is offered move coverings than some of the girls here, him being one of the few boys available. He rests his hands resolutely at his sides and curls them into fists. He expects the man won’t harm him until they’re at his home, where the beatings usually begin. He also thinks that if he manages to survive the night, he’ll run. Far and fast as he can.

He’ll die in Argos regardless, but he refuses to die lying down.

The soldier doesn't look back either, confident that he will be obeyed at least as far as this, and he can sense there is something stronger about this boy's pride - the bruise by his mouth, the way he holds his head up as if he were marching to war - or execution. He is too young for either. 

The trip through the streets is almost surreal - the guard captain is a stillness moving through a storm of revellers, passing them by untouched - he has a natural grace and enough presence that no one runs into him - by extension, there is a void behind where he moves that leaves Will free to pass in peace, like a smaller boat passing in the wake of a ship.

The place he leads him is unlikely to be his true home all the time - perhaps that is not even in Argos, but the soldier's quarters are private at least, with a genuine door behind the flap that allows the door to be left open in the worst heat - he holds this back for Will to enter, leaning down and out - the entryway is too low for him to step through without ducking.

Inside, it is sparse but neat, and he finally pauses to consider his prize, lets his eyes run over the picture presented him. Then he reaches out, curls his hand under the boy's chin and tilts his head up toward him, to have a look through half-lidded eyes at the bruise, the old split in his lip. He's not wholly pleased, but his touch does not turn painful.

"What do they call you?" 

Will doesn't blink, and doesn't jerk away despite all his instincts screaming for him to do just that. He just swallows and searches the man's face before pressing his lips together and parting them gently with the tip of his tongue.

"I've been taught not to repeat those words in civilized company." he replies, deadpan. He's been called a number of unpleasant things, and subject to actions just as unpleasant. When the man doesn't let him go, Will lowers his eyes and lets out a breath. "You paid to call me anything you want, sir, but my name is Will."

An unusual name for a boy of his status and standing, for a boy in his position, or someone in Argos at all. His name isn't from here, just as originally he wasn't either. He doesn't speak again, he wasn’t bought for that, and just waits. It's usually here, when the door is closed and the initial consideration complete that the beatings start, that Will finds himself struggling away from rough hands and drunken breath. The soldier has one but not the other, Will can smell no alcohol on him.

He doesn't ask his name in turn, his voice isn't meant for that either. He doesn't ask why he chose him, when all other soldiers had passed him by before. He doesn't ask if the door is locked. He had spent his time when trailing behind the man - too close to attempt an escape then - memorizing the route so he could run away, emerge in the town center and make his way out of the city.

The look he receives in response is strange, not anger but - almost good humor. The soldier sees through him, to the fact that he has retained his willpower. There is still some calculation in the boy's eyes. The desire to fight or run - maybe both. The soldier does not hit him.

"Did you come with the Persian army, or did they find you elsewhere?" The question isn't hostile - he is curious. The skin is pale, but the dark eyelashes, the soft curls of hair. The light eyes however... The soldier amends, "I suppose it does not matter."

The fingers still under Will's chin caress once, softly, and the guard turns away, toward the back of the room where there is a bed piled with sheep's skins, which he indicates simply, and his order is, "Sit."

Will drops his head as soon as he’s allowed to and stares at the floor. He supposes it doesn’t matter either. Regardless, it doesn’t matter. He can’t remember. He was young when he was taken, brought to the temple and allowed to live there. And for a while, it was alright. He was fed well, allowed rest, allowed a fair amount of freedom within the temple itself outside of rituals. And even the rituals, while he had been small, were not painful or cruel. Then he’d grown up.

Will flicks his eyes up at the next command and obeys in silence. The man has given him no reason to retaliate yet, and hasn’t tried to hurt him. he thinks briefly on the soft touch of the man’s fingers under his chin before he’d stepped away. He even turns his back on Will to retrieve whatever it is he wants, and Will sits heavily, fingers curling in the warm, soft sheepskin as he waits.

No threat is forthcoming, even now. Though the man looks martial and severe, he does not seem the sort to harbor old anger over wars past or his own impotency in life. He has hands that clearly know how to wield a sword, but no intent to use them to hurt without orders to do so. Instead of a whip or a torture implement, he produces a bucket - the water cool within, but clean, and in the heat of the day the cool water might be a blessing. There is a thick, yellow piece of sponge as well, sun bleached and soft. The intent is fairly clear.

Will regards the sponge and chews his lip before bending to untie his sandals. He bathed fairly recently, the brothel was popular in that it kept its merchandise useable and appealing. Mostly. Some girls were treated much better than others, they brought in money, the others had to take example. Will was mostly ignored, though not denied the right to wash and sleep when he wasn’t being used.

He removes his tunic next, folding it carefully enough, and steps closer, eyes still down but now no barrier at all between himself and the man’s intentions. He holds out his hand in offer of washing the soldier first, or even himself so the man doesn’t dirty his hands.

It wasn't that he found Will immediately, offensively dirty, it was simply that the soldier found things proceeded better with both parties relaxed. He wanted fire, but not utter refusal. He caused enough pain when he fought, to his enemies. In this, he has no desire to cause pain. The soldier wrings the sponge out, takes the extended arm, and pushes the sponge over the fingertips, top and bottom, over the extended palm and the back of his hand.

He works his way forward from what was offered - deliberately misinterpreting the gesture to suit himself. His eyes are pleased and heavy lidded, and he does not spare the water, letting it run in thin trickles down Will's back as he washes his neck, his hands firm, his touch far from painful, but not delicate either. 

"Be calm," he assures feeling his work undo itself as he moves the sponge over the boy's lower back. "I don't intend to hurt you." The flinches are strange in one of his profession, but with the bruise on his face, the soldier has some picture of his most recent encounter. It seemed almost a sin that someone would damage him - he was quite lovely.

In his confusion, Will stills. Allows the man to wash his arm and further, around his neck and down his back. And he seems content enough doing it that Will can’t bring himself to retaliate beyond the way his body has grown used to. But still a blow does not come, just words hummed low for him to stay still. He doesn’t take the promise at face value, a few had promised to not hurt him and ended up being the cruellest. But the soldier has shown no signs of wanting to see Will hurt, not even a dark lustful glimmer in his eye that would suggest it.

So Will stays as still as he can and endures.

After a while the slow, rhythmic stroking of the sponge against his skin becomes less endurable and far more pleasurable, and his muscles uncurl from their tension just enough to notice. He desperately wants to ask what the man wants, so he’s prepared to give it or conserve his strength to fight it. he doesn’t know how long he’s been bought for, he wasn’t present when the money was exchanged and the terms discussed.

The guard works patiently, content to be given the quiet to focus his other senses on Will and see how he finally - though he resists himself almost every second of the way - relaxes into the touch. It was telling, and if anything it bolstered the man's patience more. He could have rushed this like it seemed others had, with no intent to have both enjoy it.

Will wonders, in a strange longing way, if he’ll be permitted to sleep in the soft bed after the soldier is done with him. it will be the most luxurious thing he’s laid on since the temple, and even there he had to share with so many of the other children.

“Have you fought many wars?” he asks finally, his voice quiet but genuinely curious. The silence seems rude, and Will has given the man nothing for his kindness save withholding his desire to flee.

He brings the sponge up, shifting, and works it gently over Will's throat, feeling it move against his fingers, as he works it down, washes over the collar bones with attention to the further bruising there - older, but no less savage. He returns the sponge to the bucket and wrings it out, brings it up clean to work over Will's other arm before he'll have to move.

"Not so many as to have died," the soldier chuckles - likely an in-joke, it seemed the sort of fatalistic humor soldiers often employed. "Enough to have become a guardsman instead." A matter of defending instead of aggressing, though in some cases the distinction was fine.

"Your patron is blind to all of this," he observes, and his fingers pass lightly over a dark bruise, and then on. "Why?" 

Whether his question is answered or not, the guard rises from behind Will and moves to his front, going down onto one knee to finish his attentions - which stay strictly polite, though he does take an extra moment or two to push the slightly rough surface of the sponge against the soles of Will's feet - just enough to begin to tease.

Will responds involuntarily to the tickling and nearly loses his balance. When he regains it, his cheeks are dark, any respect he’d hoped to win from the man now burned to dust. He frowns a little.

“They have wives to beat at home.” He responds eventually. “Some of the girls are too fragile. They pay good money to harm me.”

He knows the woman who sold him isn’t blind to it. she expects him to take the beatings and ask for more, bring in money and magically heal over night for the next man. Sometimes she’s gotten angry enough to slap him for his body’s ineptitude. Will casts his eyes down and chews his lip.

"They only beat you?" The response is surprised - that she would keep him only to be used that way was... well, he supposed it must have been lucrative enough. It does leave him with an interesting question. He had seen the fact that there had been almost shame in having to surrender to the tickling, though it had been playful, the fact that Will had not borne it with indifference had shamed him.

“You paid good money for me.” Will says finally, whether it’s an implication or a question is unclear. He is too used to harm, too used to being deceived with false kindness to just accept that the man may only want the one thing from him. that, too, comes with its own level of pain.

"I didn't pay it to beat you," the guard continues, frankly, watching Will's reaction. It was a pity, the boy was made for expression. For enjoyment - not pain with nothing else. He sets the sponge aside and stands up, undoes the belt over the middle of his tunic that holds his dagger, and sets it aside, before he pulls the garment up over his head. 

Then he turns the sponge over to Will, and sees how the boy takes that information - he's measuring how this will proceed, from the expression on his features.

Will steps back on reflex but stops when he sees the action go no further than to disrobe. He swallows gently and takes the sponge when it’s offered. They had done more than just beat him, but it would be bad form to mention such in front of a man who had similar ideas, if gentler ones. He is taller than Will is, he would need to stretch to even reach his neck, but he doesn’t ask the guard to accommodate. 

Instead he walks around the man to dip the sponge into the water, rinse it clean and fill it anew, before moving to stand in front of him and start as he had been washed, from the hand and up. it’s slow, Will is careful to sluice the sweat off the man’s skin to chase the dirty water with the sponge so it doesn’t dirty the floor or the parts of the man he has already washed.

He is careful to wash between his legs and down them, face turned away not in disgust so much as to offer privacy, as little as there was. He doesn’t linger, and quickly moves to the man’s back to wash there too.

He notices the scars, a multitude, some old with scar tissue, others newer and still slightly red against the skin. he doesn’t touch them, but he lets his eyes follow every line, wonder what weapon made each, or what creature. Will, for all his hated work, has fair skin, still smooth besides a few scars that had landed badly and had cost extra. He has nothing of the experience of the man in front of him.

When he’s finished, he can’t help but run a finger gently over a raised line on the skin, just below the ribs from the back to the man’s side on his left. It’s a long mark, most likely a deep one when it had happened. He catches himself, fascinated, and pulls his hand away before returning to look up at his master for the night.

The scar beneath Will's fingers was tight skin over tight muscle, relaxed though the guard was. The scars are simply sign that he lived on to heal - there is one beneath his eye that curls down to his lip as well, which must have been unpleasant to recover with. For all the boy seems fascinated with his scars, he is more interested in the expanses of smooth skin on Will - and more upset by the places where it has been broken.

"A Hippalectryon," he says, by way of explanation for the scar, and then he smiles over his shoulder at the boy - he feels better to be clean and cool in the warm air, and he lets his guard down some in response to how he can feel some of the tension has gone out of Will. "Some of my unit fellows convinced me - when I was a younger man - that you could tame one to ride if you robbed a nest."

Possibly it was true, he'd never made it close enough to see if the nest was even occupied. It turns out that they were ferocious parents as well. The memory is... amusing by this point. It had been funny for no one involved at the time, when they'd had to carry their fellow down from the rocky mountaintop bleeding heavily and explain the entire affair to their commander. 

The guard smiles, in a way that suggests he might like to win one back of his own. "I picked you because you were still alive - there was enough fire in your eyes when you looked at me to suggest you'd be interesting."

He pauses, reaches up to push his hair back over his shoulders onto his back. "Are you?" 

Will smiles at the story and tilts his head as though to read a lie. It seems such a normal, stupid thing to do, and something Will has never experienced himself; normalcy. At the question, however, his brows furrow gently, though not in anger. He isn't sure how to reply honestly. He's found 'interesting' to be an ambiguous term when it came to him and the men that bought him. He lets out a sigh and directs his eyes upwards again.

"I'm still alive," he replies at length. He only is because he's too stubborn to just lie down and take it. That doesn't stop him being scared. Of the men, of the brothel, of the city he's been swallowed by. He's old enough that he should have experienced much more in life than he has. Though, what he has experienced has hardened him. He finds himself almost fidgeting with the need to ask the soldier to clarify his terms. He settles on

"In what way do you find me interesting?"

"I haven't decided yet," the guard answers, and then he moves at last, shifting into motion. The answer is vague, but the guard doesn't seem to mind, instead he settles back on the bed, leans back., his eyes still on Will.

"In what ways would you like to be found interesting?" he asks, eyes attentive - they travel a low warm line over his chest, but then come back up to Will's eyes. He has paid to take his time, to have as long as he needs - and he does not seem to be in a rush. 

The guard scratches his own chest idly, then crosses his arms over it, and waits. This will be rewarding if he is patient enough to lure the boy in, and if he can't well - it will be another lesson. It's unlikely Will has ever had his opinion asked on such a matter - or in fact been treated with any kind of consideration since he had found himself in the brothel. It was unfortunate - if he looked forward to what would happen instead of hesitated because he had only been treated unkindly... the results would be better. The guard keeps that opinion to himself, however, and just waits to see what is ventured. 

Will hesitates when the man moves, wondering if he should follow - he knows he should - but not doing so beyond a few steps to be closer, within reach if need be. He finds this new question just as perplexing. How would he like to be found interesting? Like a human being, perhaps. He'd very much enjoy it if someone asked him what he wanted for a change, and gave it to him at his request.

"I would like to be more than an outlet." he suggests finally. "I don't think I'm interesting. I don't have stories to tell, like you, or scars to tell them for me. And those I do have don't tell stories of interest but of unspoken, secret things." he blinks and looks away for a moment, towards the door, before turning his head back, eyes to the floor. "I don't know why you find me interesting, or in what capacity, and it is not my place to ask."

But he wants to. He wants to ask him what he wants, he wants to get the man to be clear with him, to not vaguely suggest and offer, it hurts his head when Will tries to think about it. He's not used to something like this. After a moment he shifts just enough to sit on the edge of the bed, but he doesn't move closer.

The issue isn't forced. Will is allowed to sit, without being touched, as the soldier reclines and watches him with amused eyes - he has gained honesty from Will, perhaps a first. It convinces him that he can gain more, if he just lays the line out and waits patiently. It will be worth it.

"I find you interesting because you had enough fire and resentment to meet my eyes, but you are still timid," comes the answer, delivered in a soft tone. It's not the whole of it - Will was utterly mismanaged, by the guard's opinion. "I find that an interesting paradox, for my past experiences. And a waste of potential."

He wanted to have interesting stories, wanted to have experiences he could relate with some pride - and being shut up and beaten and treated badly would not get him there. The guard wonders if he can negotiate a trade into a better situation. "Tell me what you do enjoy - if there's any of it that you ever have."

It's a small concession - he could always opt to not comply with the request, but though it was small it was still personal. Just a calculated risk. 

Will has enjoyed very little of what was done to him since he'd left the temple. But there, they had been gentle, there he was a beautiful thing to be cared for and cherished, taken care of and watched with reverence. He wonders if perhaps that counts as an answer. And he wants to give one; the guard isn't forcing things from him, rather asking, and Will finds he enjoys talking when he has the time to think. It's been a long time since he has.

"At the temple, the men would touch me gently." he says after a pause, fingers running through the sheepskin on which he sits carefully, splayed and slow. "There would be a fire and sweet-smelling oils."

He hadn't felt particularly safe there, at the time, but it hadn't been the hell on earth his life is now. The temple had been a busy place, and he would be tired and sore a lot of the time, though taken care of and fed. There had been six of them there, that Will remembered. He doesn't know what became of the others.

"I enjoyed that." he swallows gently and plucks the sheepskin lightly a few times before looking up again. Something about the way the man just lies there, listening to him speak, taking in his answer and not pushing him, is enough to make Will want to move to him, want to ask questions in turn, see if the man's kindness persists or if it melts to cruelty as soon as Will is in reach.

He supposes, in the end, he still has his nails, has his teeth. He can fight if anything turns for the worse. He eases himself further up the bed and sits near the man's thigh, legs tucked under himself gently, both hands splayed on the bed for balance.

"What do you enjoy?"

Oh, a temple boy - that at least is interesting. It was more appropriate for men to take the beardless youths under wing, at least in the city. As a soldier, the guard's tastes had developed into something more practical - base and common, by public opinion. He didn't much care how much it was frowned on, he had earned a right not to concern himself overmuch with the opinions of others.

But pulling the information out of himself seems to be a difficult process for Will - one that he is uncertain of, so he is rewarded for it. The guard lifts a hand slowly as Will settles nearer, as he pushes his fingers through the sheepskins for the texture. He settles it warm on the back of Will's shoulders, high, by his neck and rubs gently.

"A chance to slow down and catch my breath," he says, honestly. "But I don't have the leisure for a family."

"More specifically I enjoy taking my time with pleasure, and giving it as much as getting it," he answers, when he catches the look given to him for being vague. "If my tastes were not so unacceptably deviant I might find relief at temple, but I find I prefer not only experience but masculinity." 

Will's cheeks darken slightly at the answer and he ducks his head to watch his fingers part the fleece before it settles again. He doesn't flinch away from the touch, though he tenses at it. So he had gotten Will for pleasure, at least in some finer points of that Will is well-versed. He chances a glance at the guard again from how he has his head, where he won't be seen studying him. He's strong, well-built, tall, much larger than Will but doesn't seem to have the cruelty to match. And he's giving him patience. Any other man would have Will how he wanted him by now, but not him.

Will curls his fingers in the sheepskin and shifts closer still, perhaps an exchange for an honest answer. He doesn't reach out to touch him yet, but he does look up.

"I don't think you're deviant." he tells him carefully. Will has never questioned his own preferences because he's never had them brought forward as wrong before. The temple encouraged him to participate in the rituals, did not stop the boys from exploring on their own. He tilts his head a little, lips gently pressed together before he parts them on a breath. For a moment he doesn't speak, wondering if it would be appropriate to, and then decides that there can only be so much leniency offered him.

"Neither do I," the guard answers. He knows there is little deviant about preferring what was practical - what one had acquired a taste for. On campaign there was the one option - the Soldier had found he preferred it, and that was all, to his mind. His hand does not cease the work - soothing, relaxing, but nothing insisting or heavy - just working to ease further tension out of Will as they speak. As the boy - man really, the guard allows, by his own definition. "But I'm a little biased."

"What am I allowed to call you?" Will asks. If he gets his answer he'll move closer still, in a way the man may find pleasing. He doubts it had slipped the man's attention that for certain answers Will moved closer and responded as asked.

He'd wondered when the question would overwhelm Will, but he doesn't remark on it. Likely it had been expected that this would be impersonal, painful. The guard smiles, a very small victory. "It's Draco," he says, with some amusement. "Though my stunts as a younger man gained me a variety of other names."

Draco does find the response pleasing, the way he is allowed to earn his measures, and he sits up finally and settles both his hands to the task of easing against the cool, still faintly damp skin of Will's back. " You may tell me stop, if you wish. If I hurt you, it is unintended and I expect you to let me know. I am very interested in not hurting you."

The tone drops down into clear suggestion, but he is still allowed - somehow, miraculously - to say no if he liked. It did not mean that Draco would stop - though likely he'd cease his efforts for the evening - but he could renew his pursuits at any point. Knowing there had been, once, something enjoyable for Will in this is encouragement enough. 

Will nods slowly, swallows at the feeling of both the guard's hands against his back now, gentle and not insistent but there. He'd gained a name, and leniency. More than he supposed he deserved. He arches his back just gently, enough to feel, and keeps his eyes on his fingers nervously parting the fleece over and over. After a moment he sighs, closes his eyes tight before opening them, and looks up.

The man has done him no wrong. He had bought him to enjoy, had let Will find his space on his own, move at the speed of his own choosing, has given him permission to ask to stop if the pain became too much. He lets go of the sheepskin to push himself up on all fours, feeling Draco's hands slide lower still, just skirting the skin below his tailbone, and moves to slide into his lap. He straddles him carefully before settling down and back, hands careful before pressing lightly against his chest to keep himself balanced.

When Will looks up, he's nervous, but he isn't frightened. He just hopes the slow pace is allowed for a while longer before the soldier loses his nerve.

"I'm very interested in not hurting you either." Will says quietly, a smile appearing for just a moment before it vanishes and he wonders if he overstepped his bounds with the jest.

The pleased noise that accompanied Will's acceptance - on his own terms - and the spread of Draco's wandering hands from Will's back to his sides suggest that his choice was the right one. He keeps his touches broad and flat along Will's sides so as not to tickle, but simply to soothe and ease. No matter what they had done to him - foolishly, in the guard's opinion - they had not robbed him utterly of his ability to enjoy touch.

That would make this enjoyable for both of them, anyway. 

Draco meets his gaze, and there's a warm smile, that gives way to a sudden chuckle at the joke - at the smile that disappears far too quickly. A shame. "Good to know," he answers, with his own smile. He had seen the decision to move, to try, slowly form itself on Will's features - and then he had accepted it.

It was interesting, as the boy was. Draco still does not rush, runs his hands up along the underside of Will's arms in encouragement to touch as he liked. "Don't guard your wit," Draco tells him, when his hands are mapping in gentle lines somewhat ruined by his rough, calloused fingers over Will's chest, then down over his belly, before they return to his shoulders, his neck. "I won't punish you for it." 

Will feels a strange sort of triumph bloom in his chest at the fact that he seems to have pleased Draco with his silly joke. He pauses, hesitating, before allowing his hands to first mirror Draco's movements - down his chest and to his belly before moving up to his shoulders - and then to improvise on their own. This is strangely relaxed, though Will's wariness of the man doesn't quite leave him yet.

"What would you punish me for?" he ventures quietly, pausing before letting his fingers brush over the man's nipples and return when the gesture garners a positive response. Will almost smiles again. They both enjoy that caress then. He circles the nubs with his thumbs and then runs the pads over them in a slow, deliberate movement in hopes it will be mirrored on him. The tentative question hangs in the air between them a moment before Will decides to push for another answer; he's getting away with so much more than usual here, he wants to make sure he understands how far he can tug this before it brings forth a monster.

"And how?"

He wants to know so he doesn't push the man that far. Tease him, yes, but never anger him. Not when he could have what he had so nervously asked for - gentleness and patience, even, inadvertently, a conversation. He doesn't find the man repulsive, does not find the idea of being laid out on the furs by him revolting, but he does not push for it yet, for just as much, he isn't ready for him to push yet. He draws the fingers of one hand down from its pleasurable teasing to trace another scar and raises his eyes carefully to gauge the response.

"There is very little," Draco assures, humming low in his chest as he puts it together that the attention is demonstrative of what Will wants - without the man having to ask for it verbally. He reciprocates at first gently with his thumbs, then with his forefinger and thumb both. "Violence, I think, or a failure to care one way or the other."

Draco leans forward, and down a little - though with Will up over his lap it isn't as much as it would normally have to be - and licks a slow line over one of Will's nipples, then the other when that garners him a pleasing reaction. Will shivers in his grip, and then arches into the next touch of Draco's mouth.

For the attention Will was seeking, he got far more. Draco’s hands are gentle, if rough from fighting, and the sensation of his fingers against Will’s skin makes his lips part on a surprised but very pleased sound. The shivers pass over him like the water had, slowly down his back and away to nothing, but he finds himself moving closer, seeking out more, opening himself up to more.

When Draco glances up, licking his lips as if he had tasted something delicious, it still is not quite a terrifying look. This man is a soldier and dangerous, but old soldiers are rare enough that perhaps the qualities he has are what has kept him intact, minus scars. He reaches up and very gently touches Will's bruised mouth. "As for punishment, I think you've endured enough. All I need do is send you back, and it's threat enough. I would much rather reward you."

He leans in then, to see if Will is going to shy away from kissing, as some in his trade do. 

Will’s lip has healed well enough, but it’s still tender. He lets Draco touch him, parting his lips a little wider as he tries to even his breathing to normal again. the guard’s other hand rests against his hip and anchors him down, but it’s not a possessive or painful hold, if anything it’s one of convenience, but still Will finds himself enjoying it, feeling the heat from the palm seep into his skin.

It’s hard not to guess what Draco wants from him, and Will hesitates, not shifting back or closer. It is very, very rare that someone asks this of him and he’s unsure if he wants to open himself up quite so much here. And at the same time he does, letting the tip of his tongue lightly wet the thumb against his lip before letting his eyes close.

“You’ll send me back regardless,” he whispers, tone heavier with displeasure at the notion than he thought he could be capable of. The brothel is – ironically – his escape from the worst. But now Will draws his lip into his mouth lightly before leaning forward and allowing the kiss.

It's the truth though, that the woman was cruel to him, that it was a punishment that it was unlikely Will would even deserve if they just put some time into his development. If Draco was a freer man - well, he does not have time for a family, and what would he do even as a free citizen with a slave? He does his best not to entertain the thought - it's a weakness he supposes everyone feels occasionally.

He could, perhaps, make an inquiry or two into some of the better houses he knows. Draco makes no promises ahead of what he intends to keep anyway. There are other things to hold his attention, anyway, than how desperately sad the truth had sounded in Will's voice. 

The kiss isn't quite as gentle as Draco's touches had been - instead it is passionate and holds intent, promise. His hands shift on Will's hips and pull their bodies closer together, a sound rough and low in his chest with approval. He is grateful to be given this, when he knows how low it must make Will's defences feel. When they break, he smiles. "Not before tomorrow evening." 

Time enough to more than take their time - likely the woman had imagined all sorts of horrors for Will, but really Draco wanted to see him well fed, well slept and preferably sated. There was a life in the eyes that had met his that deserved proper encouragement.

Will makes another weak sound and for a moment just surrenders to what Draco wants to do to him. Opens his mouth wider to the kiss, sits closer when he’s pulled, curls his arms around the man’s neck. He finds he wants more, not just for this to end as quickly as possible. Perhaps it’s the patience, perhaps the lenience, or both, but Will doesn’t feel stifled here, doesn’t feel like he’s going through the motions as he usually does.

The timeframe is also unusual. He’s never been kept longer than a few hours. At first, because no one wanted to. Later, because it was dangerous for him to be kept longer with the amount and diversity of abuse he was subject to. He wonders what the man had told the woman he wanted him for. But he doesn’t ask him. Instead, he just draws his fingers over the man’s lips and down, eyes following the movement before it terminates, just leaving his hand resting against Draco’s ribs.

He wants to give something in return, but all he has is what Draco is holding; his body and very little else.

“How do you want me?” he asks finally, and there is far less resentment in the words now than there would have been upon first entering the room. Will had wanted to know what to expect, or what to expect to fight again. the wariness will die last in him, after all the other thoughts slip by.

"At my leisure," the guard answers, though he already has that. Sliding his hands over the boy's lower back, he applies a gentle, soothing pressure. "But for now, stay as you are," he continues, tracing a line around Will's hips and over, then up along his thighs. He can see this way, the effects he has - both physically and on Will's features. 

There is time later to lay him flat and visible, but here he can feel the way Will shifts when he finally slides his palm against Will's cock between them, careful to lead with his palm - barely softer than his fingers, but a little easier while the skin is soft and sensitive, until it begins to fill and he can curl his grip properly around it.

Will gasps quietly and closes his eyes for a moment, one hand curled around Draco’s arm, the other in a gentle fist by his side, useless for the moment. He doesn’t shift into the touch, not properly, but he does arch up, shoulders back before they return to the gentle forward curve of before. When he opens his eyes again he doesn’t meet Draco’s, but he runs his hand up to his shoulder and splays it, letting his fingers press a little into the skin.

Draco leans in then, opens his mouth and slides the softness of his tongue over one of Will's nipples as he had so seemed to enjoy earlier, then the other, with more attention, before he draws back with a warm exhale of air as he is satisfied with the response under his fingers. "To avoid any difficulties later," he says, almost apologetic for being direct and crass. "What experiences have you had?"

Will finds the combination of sensations near overwhelming, and bites his tongue gently to avoid damaging his lip further as he tries to keep quiet. But the quiet little whimpers still come through, and he’s not as stoic in holding himself back as he had been, finding his hips shifting up into Draco’s grip, head tilting back so his body arches pleasingly for the warm lips to explore. When he swallows, it’s audible, but he takes a moment to think the question over.

“The temple taught me to feel pleasure,” he says at length. The rituals had never been cruelly forced but they had been penetrative, a slow, methodical act usually performed when Will was surrounded by the intoxicating swirls of incense smoke, his stomach warm with wine. He remembers pain but very little, his mind usually too absent from his body to notice. “But I don’t know how to give it.”

And the brothel… the brothel had taught him resistance and hatred, endurance and his body’s natural limits. He had not been encouraged to pleasure, there. He had not been offered it, nor was it ever asked of him. he was a thing to be used, abused and returned.

“The brothel taught me not to fear it.” he settles on finally, breath stuttering as Draco doesn’t relent, still stroking him until Will’s fingers press harder into his shoulder. He reciprocates the only way he knows will please him, leaning closer and kissing him again. he shifts his hands to run down the guard’s chest again touching and circling, teasing and letting his nails run just barely over the skin.

They had made him an object to be used, but never to survive the using. To whimper and bleed prettily, or even to lay back and let others allow him pleasure if that was what they wanted, but they had never empowered him to give it. The prospect for education here promises reward - with the way Will learned quickly to respond to what he enjoyed.

With the way he could be coaxed into taking risks. 

"I'm not sure that's wholly the truth," Draco answers, with some amusement - the boy was very careful with his words. He had a beautiful wariness and tact, and they were hard learned. "But in a way."

The steps had been completed - the first possibly admirably, the second leaving much to be desired. There was only the idea that it could be embraced that Will lacked. Draco has time enough to make a little headway. He had found the rituals of the temple tolerable, and the uses found for him at the brothel abominable. Draco ceases stroking for the moment, and shifts to open himself a little more for Will's exploration, to empower him a little. He leans back on one elbow, but keeps his other hand free, rests it lightly over the back of Will's dominant wrist and guides, then curls his thumb under the boy's palm, his fingers over the arched backs of Will's own and gives him leave to scratch a little more firmly against his skin with a guiding pressure.

Draco hisses his pleasure at the lines that appear on his skin, well used to marks and yet still growing red in lines that show where Will has been. "And no one has ever taught you to seek it?"

Will watches the marks appear, registers the way Draco responds to the pressure, to the act itself. 

“Never for myself.” He says. At the temple it had been for the Gods, a power of the ritual and the pleasure within it, here, he was the object which pleasure was taken from but rarely given to. In the time between, Will has not had time to himself enough to explore. He knows which sensations he enjoys, knows what to touch to elicit, in himself, a response, but he does not know how to coax someone into giving it to him.

Though here…

As others chose to watch Will’s responses to pain, Draco is choosing to do the same with pleasure. To give Will sensation instead of shock, to take his time, patiently, to push Will to find it on his own. He draws his fingers over the reddened marks on Draco’s chest, marks he had left by instruction, before leaning closer to chase that fading sensation away with his tongue, lips drawing together when he reaches the end. He hums gently and pulls back, finding himself responding to the response, enjoying the fact that the soldier enjoyed this, and him.

Seeking pleasure for himself.

He leans up to try simple mirroring, to see if what had gotten him to let his voice free, even a little, would do the same to the other man.

The faint sting lingers only a few seconds on Draco's skin, but the heat of Will's mouth, given without need for instruction, lingers far longer and just as pleasurably. He lifts his hand from Will's wrist, and settles it on his thigh again, running it over the top, then the backs of his knuckles along the inside, and though both Will's hands are his own while one of the guard's is propping him up, he feels the way he is mirrored against his own skin. 

It was surprising and enticing - and perhaps selfishly, he makes his own touch more direct. Will hadn't shied when he had washed the guard earlier - this is different, but not by much. As Draco curls his fingers and strokes Will's cock, the mirror is at first timid, then with more confidence as Draco drops his head back against the wall just behind him in obvious pleasure.

It's a strange duality, not quite like pleasuring himself, but far from the more assertive lovers he's had. His voice comes lower - on groans, on swallows as he allows his defences down into the sensation, but he never fully closes his eyes - watching, in a way, his own reaction on Will's features too. He is not such a narcissist - so when Will finally accepts that he has been given free reign and tries to change what he is mirroring with a faster pace, Draco groans pleasurably, arches into it in a rolling motion, and pushes his thumb - gently, he knows his fingers are rough - over the slit in the head of Will's cock, sliding the foreskin back in his grip to trace over the glans, to show Will the intensity that even just touch could bring - but it causes the boy's rhythm to falter in pleasure. Draco chuckles breathlessly and eases back, lifts his hand to his own mouth to lick against his thumb, and give Will a chance to catch his breath.

If he changes his mind, and leans up to press his mouth against the furrow of concentration between Will's brows, then tilts his chin up to take his mouth again, deeply this time, almost affectionately, but certainly appreciative - before he breaks on a groan as his own tricks are fully employed against him.

A fast learner, and the small laugh he hears in answer as he tips his head back again, bares his neck and arches up, suggests he had spoken aloud without fully realizing.

Will’s breathing isn’t steady, it’s stuttered and quick, but his body is thrumming with energy and his sensitivity to touch has escalated to the point where he shifts into any touch he’s allowed. Every response he gains is a victory in itself, a strange power he has never been permitted before. He does learn fast, commits everything to memory and starts to allow himself to experiment, to tailor the responses.

But soon it becomes difficult to do anything without the danger of falling over the edge himself, and Will rests, his body trembling just a little as he leans over Draco and studies him.

“How are you so patient?” he asks quietly, wondering. Surely he’s not like this with every whore he buys. But then, few need the education Will is getting, which begs another question Will doesn’t voice. Why bother? Why bother teaching Will how to please him when his lack of experience could have had him returned within minutes of being bought. There are other boys at the brothel, those taught as the girls are, to please.

"I wasn't always," Draco answers, and then he begins to shift, just enough to get them laid out on the bed the correct way, rather than draped onto it sideways where it is too short for either of them to properly lay out. "But patience has rewarded me enough times - as it has this time - that I've grown fond of it." 

Will can feel the heat radiate from the man under him, feels his heart beat quickly when he presses close enough to, knows that every patience has a limit, and yet beyond drawing his hands closer and closer up Will’s inner thighs, and spreading them subtly enough to not be a demand, he has done nothing but surrender himself.

Draco lays flat, then pulls Will against him, and lifts his hand to trace over that same scar in his side, perhaps a reminder of what his impatience had wrought him instead. One could not say that life hadn't conditioned the guard captain just as much as it had Will. "You are very attractive in pleasure," he tells Will, "And others have dead eyes, dead hands, dead minds."

Will had met his eyes, however - he knows now it had been a defense, a tactic to drive off those who would do harm to what they sensed as weaker, like wolves or wild dogs falling upon their own when they are starving or frustrated. Draco perhaps is not quite tame, but he is far from wild. He knows enough to understand the value one has in allies that are made, rather than enemies. He had seen a challenge, but not of the sort he wanted to eradicate. Just experience.

From beneath the bed - practically - he pulls a stone pot, works free the cork and drips sweet smelling oil onto his fingers, and Will's, before he sets the jar aside within reach, and he curls his slick hand around Will's cock again while he tries to decide how he wants him for this.

Will keens quietly before he can think of a reply. He’s never particularly paid attention to how people look in pleasure, has never had the chance to, nor can he agree or disagree that he is attractive whilst in the throes of it. he’s had attention enough throughout his life to know that his features make him attractive and pleasing to the eye, but vanity had never had time to set in. not when Will spent most of his life trying to keep it.

He takes his cue and trails the backs of his knuckles down Draco’s stomach before gently stroking him as well, spreading the oil before adjusting his rhythm to match Draco’s against him. He moans quietly before stilling his hand, using a lot of willpower to press his palm to Draco’s to stop him as well, before shifting closer, enough for him to be able to curl his hand around them both and start a gentle rhythm.

It feels better than Will anticipated and he finds himself ducking his head to rest against Draco’s chest, trying to hold back whimpers of need and failing more often than not. He feels a palm cup his chin and lift it and forces himself up, eyes still barely open. His free hand is fisted in the sheepskin under them for balance and grounding but it’s doing little to help. Then lips meet his own and Will lets go to press his other hand to the bed as well, a quiet whine escaping him before he pulls away.

“I’m… very close,” he breathes, not wanting to disobey but scared if he doesn’t voice his silent plea for mercy or permission he would be punished regardless of earlier promises.

The way they slide together is wonderful, and while this hadn't been the exact shape of Draco's plans, he finds his breath speeding at the warm pressure against him, his own voice answering Will's moans and gasps, but he grants them both mercy when Will asks and stops, uncurls his grip just slightly.

Draco smiles at the honesty, at the faint look of fear in Will's eyes that seems integral - that the guard would like to see gone by the evening tomorrow. "Are you ready?" he asks, "Or do you want to forestall?"

There is no wrong answer - though Will would have to trust him to believe that. He need not place Draco's pleasure ahead of his own, or insist on timing them together - this is a co-operation. A mutual appreciation, at least if Draco flatters himself. He isn't far himself, though the edge recedes as he rests his hands flat on Will's legs, and catches his breath.

They are not so far apart that the guard can't appreciate Will's wide blown pupils that suggest genuine enjoyment, the sensitive mouth parted to just begin to show his teeth in passionate desperation, and he approves. The sight itself is enough to make him feel a half step closer, but he does not press one way or the other, allows Will to have his decision.

Will takes a moment to catch his breath, sliding their hips together gently as though to regain the movement and friction again. again, he has choice. And the choice sparks the warm desire for a challenge in him, as it had before. When he looks up, Draco’s eyes are much darker than before, and the knowledge that Will’s responsible for that, and for the way the man holds him and he can feel him shaking a little with holding himself back, is empowering.

“I can wait.” He says, hoping he won’t renege on his own word. It’s difficult to keep as they are, when he can feel the phantom pressure and delicious roughness against his cock still, and wants it back. But he’s certain that just as Draco’s patience has paid off, his own will as well. He swallows and tilts his head, enough so that their lips are close but not quite touching.

“Would you like me on my back?” he asks quietly, “On my knees, or bent over something?”

His experience is vast in that regard, though far from pleasant. At the temple there were so many of them, tangles of limbs and soft skin, that he isn’t sure they ever had a position that was required of them. He pulls back far enough to see the man answer.

"Oh," Draco breathes at the pictures painted, closes his eyes to savor each and the opportunities afforded. Will's choice to wait also pleased him, not because it was what he wanted but because it was a challenge to himself. He considers each option in turn, and finally settles. 

"On your side," he says, because that would be easiest, if not the most intimate, on the narrow mattress. He helps Will resettle, with his back against Draco's chest, and pulls him intimately close, one arm under his side, the other, curled at the boy's hip until they are flush together, Will a bit higher up the bed - it gives Draco a chance to press his mouth against the back of Will's neck softly, between his shoulders. It is very nearly the same place where he had first started touching him.

One hand splays low on Will's belly, the other is still faintly slick, and he uses it to gently shift Will's legs, to push his knees together and stroke gently at the insides of his thighs, without leaving him so slick as to mute all friction. As he slides his cock between, he hoists his knee over, heavy, giving him leverage and adding pressure, and he groans into it, slides slow and reaches for Will at the same time, his teeth in evidence at the back of his neck. He does not bite hard enough to pinch, but simply sets his teeth against skin as if it were the only way to hold on.

Will goes as he’s told, rolling his hips back against Draco when he’s settled, just to feel the man shift into it and press Will to him more possessively. It’s strange, being settled and not forced. It’s stranger still when the guard doesn’t move to prepare Will at all, despite his gentleness earlier, and for a second Will panics, contemplates fighting away before the pain overwhelms him. but then there is no pain, only strange, soft friction between his thighs and Draco’s teeth against his skin.

And it feels good, despite how unusual it is for Will not to be pinned and penetrated, it feels so good that his voice echoes Draco’s in a groan, his back arching so his head rests back on the soldier’s shoulder, presenting his throat for the man’s hands or teeth to explore. Will loses himself in the rhythm, brings a hand down to rest between his legs, the heel of his palm adding drier friction and pressure to the head of Draco’s cock when it rubs against it.

It isn’t long before he panting quiet pleas into the room at large, eyes closed and body trembling, shifting with every thrust to push back and down. He feels the teeth tighten against his shoulder but not painfully. Enough to mark, perhaps, and Will thinks he’ll run his fingers over the indents later, just to feel them there, to remember them there for when the mark fades. The thought is enough to bring him over with a weak little wail and Will lies pliant, sweaty and tired against the bed and Draco behind him as the guard follows him over, slicking Will’s palm as he holds himself still, groaning into Will’s skin.

They lie still, both catching their breath, Will’s eyes closed and lips parted as he feels his heart slow. After a moment he swallows, brings his hand to his mouth and slowly, carefully, starts to lick it clean.

“I would have let you,” he says quietly.

"You did let me," Draco answers, lazy and sated against Will's neck , still breathless with release, his weight limp with pleasure against Will, one leg still slung up over, and their bodies still close together. He cracks one eye open to gauge the response to that - to the idea that perhaps he did not need to see Will only in terms of something inferior to penetrate - though it was not the sort of belief he held to be universally true.

But he's greeted with the sight of Will licking his release off his own fingers by choice and he groans again, curls his fingers tighter against Will's belly as if they could possibly lie closer. He might have, were he a younger man, and the time between more than a few moments, started to get hard again. Perhaps later.

Draco is just as sated and pleased with this. "If you genuinely enjoy it," he says, and then yawns, stretches his body and makes a deeply satisfied noise before his teeth click together at the end of the sound. "I don't find that shameful. But I am just as pleased with this, and it's without chance for pain."

He strokes his palm over Will's belly and finds that somewhere in there he has made up his mind to do something. If the boy was happy where he was, he would leave well enough alone but - he had expanded under Draco's touch, even as limited as it was, had pleased him in exactly the way he had thought possible, even though he had started scared and angry and afraid of retaliation.

Will swallows again and shifts, not in a struggle but with clear intent to get away enough to move. When Draco reluctantly lets him, all Will does is turn to his other side and press close again, face to face now, comfortable enough to enjoy the closeness. He doesn’t usually allow himself to.

“I don’t know if I genuinely enjoy it.” he admits. He can’t remember the last time he had allowed it willingly, with preparation and patience. Of course it hurts without either. He splays his fingers against Draco’s chest again, just to see how light and unmarred his skin is in comparison. He bites his lip lightly, winces at the cut, and lets it go with a sigh. He doesn’t know what time it is, how long they’ve been here, but somehow the next day’s evening seems closer already than Will wants to imagine.

“If I please you, will you buy me again?” he asks.

Whatever response Draco had had, whatever promise that they need only try and discover the answer if Will genuinely desired to, before Will reminds him that they might not have a chance, after turning in his arms to settle easily against him. They fit well. It's unsettling, given his thoughts.

"You please me," Draco assures him. He doubts he will buy the boy 'again', simply because he is already tallying what he has in his mind to make a remedy of a situation he sees as unacceptable. He could own men, even as a metic he was still a free man with all the rights. It was expected of him to have a servant to carry and clean his armor, to tend his household, but in honesty he had little he required tending. 

Aside from this.

Draco looks thoughtful, goes quiet for a moment and tries to decide if he could live with simply arranging for Will to go into a much better house - one that was far more selective of its clients. A place that expected men like him - and decided it was still a risk. There was still the chance for what work he did to be undone and it was deeply appealing to be able to shape... and have his choice without the bruises. 

"I will speak to your proprietor," he suggests gently, but that is all he can promise for now. It is better to understate, in case it takes more time than he anticipates. He will have to tread carefully about showing the hand of how interested he is. "Is that what you would like?"

Will grins and ducks his head so the man won’t see it. it’s improper of him to get so hopeful at the prospect of being bought again. he forces his expression back to calm and lets out a quiet breath through his nose.

“It’s not my place to like. Or dislike.” He says, “But I would not find it a punishment to return to you.”

It would be far from one. Will doesn’t say more, just rests comfortably against his master until his eyes begin to droop. He shakes his head to try and stay awake but finds Draco in a similar state, his breathing evening and eyes closed in comfortable relaxation. He wonders how often he gets to rest. How often he lets those he buys see him like this. It’s a vulnerability very uncommon for a man of his profession.

But Will doesn’t think more on it. He ducks his head and closes his eyes and lets his breathing match Draco’s in sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The scorpions were a surprise._
> 
> To be perfectly honest, and there is no way around this in any way shape or form... this chapter is literally porn. Just porn. Three sets of porn for the price of one chapter. Enjoy the porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the label, kids. Enjoy irresponsibly.

Will has blossomed in his care - perhaps not exactly the way he envisioned, but the results have been very pleasing. As the bruises have faded, and his nourishment has gotten better - in both a spiritual and physical sense, he has learned to hold his head up more. Draco has given him legitimacy of a sort, and safety and a purpose beyond simply existing to please others. 

They had expected the displeasure of the gods - and it seemed that they had sent a reminder of the consequences, had struck Argos in the heart. He must set down the role of guard and take up again Soldier, and that means travel. It would not be so bad, without having to place so much of their needs on the shoulders of someone Draco would be more comfortable sending back to the gods. 

What good was a fisherman? Still, when he returns it is with his heavier armor, and sandals made nearly new with straps and soles for marching, and the long spear. He doesn't have long to instruct Will, to be certain he is provided for in his absence - though it is with a certain fatalism, a certain understanding of the way mortal lives work, that he suspects it may be more than an absence of a short span. 

"The gods have seen fit to remind us what insurrection brings," he explains, as he leans the spear in a corner and finds Will's eyes on him with heavy curiosity. "And sent us the results of the last defiance in mockery to guide us along the way."

Will’s eyes narrow, in the way Draco has learned to associate with mischief or a particularly delicious idea. Occasionally he narrows his eyes in thought, but that usually furrows his brow as well. Will tilts his head and draws his bottom lip between his teeth as he regards the new clothes his master wears. They’re built for war but they fit him very well. He takes a deliberate moment before meeting Draco’s eyes.

“And where is our journey to lead us?” he asks. He doesn’t move yet, sitting where he is on the bed. He had been midway through mending a tunic, though he supposes it can wait. It’s one of his own so of lower priority. He has enough clothes to take with him if they leave the city at dawn, without this little thing weighing him down. But as with everything, Will enjoys knowing what he’s getting himself into before he takes a deep breath and plunges.

He finishes a stitch and brings the fabric to his lips to cut the thread with his teeth, eyes in Draco throughout.

"Ours?" Draco asks, with clear amusement. He had indicated an 'us', he realizes, that was old habit. A phalanx had been the only unit he could indicate that way in a familiar tone for a while. He realizes he's fallen into the habit of using it for Will and he as a pair too. His eyes fall on the tunic being mended in Will's lap and then trail the string up.

"You're staying," he says in finality, as the cord parts between Will's teeth like the strands at the knives of a Fate. It was the sort of business - that of the Gods - that chewed men up and failed to return them. He has a Soldier's optimism for returning, but not that the quest to save the princess will be safe or pretty or without its losses. Will - is the sort of price he does not want to pay for success.

"I trust you can keep my humble estate while I am gone?" he asks, with a glance around at the interior - the quarters were new, to allow them enough space to breathe without feeling consistently trapped in the same room, but still humble enough. Draco reaches back to pull his hair from beneath the heavy bronze armor, and wonders if this is the last he'll see of Will - if so, he has made arrangement enough. No power can turn a slave into a freed man, but the guard has assured his life will be pleasant, if he isn't to return. 

He always has returned before, but he is not as young as he once was when he frequently campaigned.

“I’m staying?” Will echoes, eyes narrowing in anger, now. In the time he has shared his life with Draco, he has been freer than he ever remembers being. He belongs to the man wholly, through the exchange of a serious sum of money, through the laws of Argos, through every caress that has Will’s muscles tensing in pleasure and his voice loosing into the dark room. He is Draco’s entirely, and he takes full advantage of that by pushing his bounds.

“There is nothing to look after here, when you’re not in it. You have taught me to tend to your armor, how to bandage a wound, lead a horse…” he stands finally, setting his work aside and walking close enough to Draco to tilt his head up to see him, though he does not yet touch. He has learned to read the man well enough to understand when his pushing is well received and when it will not be tolerated. Today seems the latter, most certainly, but there is something lingering in his expression, just behind his eyes, that has Will tilting his head again, a small smile playing on his lips.

“I’m going with you.” He informs him, taking half a step back before sinking to his knees before the man, eyes up, deliberately working his tongue to darken the bottom lip with spit before retracting it and smirking. Then he leans in to remove Draco’s sandals. He will undress him as he does every evening. And then he will make sure the man has no doubts about taking Will with him in the morning.

He is a very, very fast learner.

So bold. It was perhaps something that Draco had encouraged a little more than was truly necessary, but he had not anticipated this. He hadn't anticipated how much it would please him to see Will shatter his own barriers either.

Will knows exactly the effect he has on Draco, and his protest dies in his open mouth as the other crouches to look up at him in deliberate suggestion. The stubbornness was how Will had survived, but it was Draco's real weakness. He already felt wound tight, discomforted by the decision to put the vengeful spawn of the Gods in charge of saving their princess. 

The implication that he himself was not enough because he did not have the blood for it. Will was a man, but he was not a soldier - though he could tend the rest, as he said. "No," Draco repeats at last, wetting his own lips. "It is likely there will be enough death without adding to the risk." Though the king had made a calculated risk with his hoplites - untrained boys and old men out for one last ride before pasture, the sort who were serving past usefulness. They were still good men, all. Still worthy. 

Will's fingers are cool and tempting on the backs of his calves, cooling some of his anger with promise, and Draco sighs against a baring of his teeth, against the irritated feeling settling between his shoulders. He is tempted - so dearly tempted. This is like to test every fiber of his patience, this journey.

Will doesn’t reply to the second denial. He will coax until there’s a third, a fourth, however many until Draco breathes a yes against him and Will follows, obedient once more. He sits up just a little higher to unbuckle the belt, pulling the leather through the complex knot before setting the heavy thing aside and nuzzling the place it had rested, feeling Draco’s stomach tense at the feeling before relaxing on a sigh.

He counts another denial and moans very quietly before pushing himself to stand, fingers working to untie the tunic, eyes on his work for the moment.

“I will wilt here, Draco,” he tells him, letting his fingers pause in his work. “With all the effort you’ve put into me, it would wasteful to leave me behind. not when I can help.” He glances up then, expression earnest and completely devoid of teasing for the moment. He wanted to go. he refuses to admit it’s because he fears he won’t see his soldier once the man leaves the city tomorrow morning. He settles on offering his services realistically for consideration.

It has becomes instinct to let Will capture and hold his gaze, to look down and meet it when Will looks his askance up. It has become easy and comforting to let his hands settle at Will's waist when he is this close, and Draco finds his fingers curling around the man's lower back without conscious effort to lift them. 

“I can carry more than you think. Take the burden out of it so you can do what you need to.” Will sighs and steps closer, eyes on the man’s lips as he gently worries his own. “I’ll be out of your way, in every way, until you need me, you have my word.” He pushes up on his tiptoes to breathe against Draco’s mouth. “Take me with you.”

Though the burden Draco would ask him to carry is unlikely to be wholly physical, certainly he would not leave Will to drag the burden of supplies or food. Finally, he sighs - the distance is so small that the air pushes warm over Will's lips, and rather than relent with his voice, Draco simply kisses him. 

"I wonder who it is that is actually owned," he muses, when he draws back and sees the victorious smile on Will's features. Draco lifts his hands and touches Will's hair gently, his face, and then pulls their bodies together. He already feels better for it. He was right - he would be needed. "I always need you," he suggests, and he reaches for his own ties to begin undoing the heavy armor currently in the way. "That's the danger."

In this case, closeness would be a danger. But if anything will assure he tries his hardest - if anything will keep him on the march until dangers are overcome and hardships are solved, here it stands. Will carried more than either of them thought already. He would be safer here, but not happy. Draco can allow that he has never chosen the path that was truly safe either. And if they could not stop the Kraken... whether by sacrifice or whatever method the witches might hold - then Will was no safer in Argos.

"We are going to seek answers from the Graeae," he reveals. A long enough journey to suggest dangers, and they will be opposed. The rest does not matter - he is determined that they will not fail. Perseus is unpromising as help, but the strength of men will not fall short. He sighs, and surrenders wholly, curls his hands at Will's waist and lifts the other just up onto his toes for another kiss.

Will helps how he can with the armor, but their hands meet too often for it to be a successful enterprise, and he allows Draco to deal with it himself, stepping back as he does to untie his own sandals, unwind the belt around his tunic before he’s pulled back. They have had a strange relationship since Draco bought him to be his alone, and Will occasionally entertains the thought of escape, but something always brings him back. Perhaps it’s because the control and ownership is binding but not painfully enforced.

Whatever the reason, he’s grown used and comfortable with surrendering himself, as now.

He knows little of the world outside of Argos, does not remember his own home or family, but he has learned, quick as with everything else, to take legends as truths. If Draco tells him they’re seeking the Graeae, then that is where their journey lies. Will’s lack of education is not something that seems to bother the soldier; he’s never chided him for his lack of knowledge and explained anything that was within his power to explain if Will ever asked him.

This is a world that gods only grudgingly share with men. Men are the least in a chain of power, save that they have more within them, live faster, move with more conviction. The days when they subjected themselves meekly to cruel whims - and the resistance could have been eased from them with kindness - were fast coming to an end. Draco sets his armor aside, and finds some satisfaction in the idea that Perseus will have only his own company and a bare cell for the evening.

Will winds his arms around Draco’s neck and pushes closer, rolling his hips gently but deliberately against the older man until he moves them how he wants them. They’ll need rest for the night, if they’re to leave so early, but Will is determined to see the man sleep relaxed, tension seeping from him as he breathes and Will lies against him.

They should sleep - now, in fact, given the morning awaiting them, but Will has become... essentially what he wanted. He had gone beyond feeling pleasure, beyond lacking fear of it, to outright embracing the notion. The effects are undeniable - his comrades in arms have commented on the reduction in how abrasive he is. The tension clings heavier to him today, but with Will's arms lifted around his shoulders, he concedes likely surrender. Draco allows it, and pushes Will back only enough to see to his own tunic, then reach for Will's. 

So this time, when he settles them on the bed, he pins Will between his body and the wall behind it, not hard enough to trap him should he wish to wriggle free. It's enough for friction, however, for them to just push against each other as their bodies respond. It's not quite desperate, not quite angry either, but the edges of it are there - never directed at Will, but apparent in how he closes his eyes and seeks harder for release, when normally Draco would take his time. Drawing it out might serve him better, but the tension is unpleasant on his shoulders.

Will goes as he’s pushed, determined to resist release as hard as Draco pushes for it. He draws his hands over the man and pulls him closer, hooking his leg over the other’s hip and arching back as much as he’s able against the cool wall. He tries to still him, present himself as a distraction, cool his tension with soft hands and softer sounds. If anything, the agitation eases, the speed and desperation still rough and determined, and Will moans, the sound usually associated with much slower, hotter things than this.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t tell the man to calm his mind and relax, it’s not his place to. Though he pushes bounds, he knows what he is to Draco, and what he is not. Demanding to accompany him is already outside even his normal pushing, and he’s determined to calm the man, not anger him. so he doesn’t speak but he shifts more, hips up and forward against the delicious friction, mouth open on pleased, sweet sounds, tuning every sense Draco allows on Will and nothing else. If he cannot see him, he will feel him tremble against his chest with need, will hear how he enjoys the touches he’s allowed.

When Draco’s eyes open, enough to see what Will is trying, if not outright surrender to it, Will falls pliant, head back and lips parted wide, brows furrowed in desperate pleasure. It’s a victory when he feels lips rough against his jaw and lower, hand curling around his side to pull him in until his back bends more. Will breaks first, with the feeling of a rough tongue against his nipple and warm breath following. But he doesn’t stop moving until Draco is as spent, until he rolls to lie on his back and catch his breath. Then Will shifts, straddling him to kiss him slowly, hands on either side of his broad shoulders, before sliding off him to get a cloth and warm some water to clean them up.

There is some ease in him now, as he lays back with his skin heated, letting Will slide over him with only a lazy caress down the man's sides as he passes. Now he is distracted, at least for the moment, his mind eased as he watches through heavy lidded eyes as Will moves through the space Draco has grown used to having him in. 

He yawns, showing his teeth into the end of it, and wonders what he has opened himself to with the permanent addition - in fact now allowed to push him hard enough so that they would not even be apart when it was practical. Draco tells himself that he would need this - at least this relief, if not the comfort that settles low in his belly as Will settles back over him with a warm cloth to wash them clean.

Draco claims the cloth from his fingers gently - perhaps in apology for his earlier rush and tension, or perhaps in gratitude for the release he'd been given from it. He trails the cloth warm and low over Will's belly, and then up, eyes nearly closed with ease, comforted by the distraction. They don't need words - the negotiations are already settled - but he can still apologize this much to suggest he was aware of his imposition.

Will hums quietly and allows himself to be washed before taking the cloth away and letting it fall to the floor by the bed where he can pick it up later. Draco is tired and comfortable under him and Will settles himself to be in the man’s arms without imposing on him any more. 

They end up a tangle of limbs regardless, waking slowly in the early morning, neither wanting to move to start the journey ahead of them.

-

Will finds he enjoys walking. It’s a heavy pack but not painfully so, and as he has no experience as a warrior, he provides no input into the plans and discussion of possible adversaries they could face. He and Draco do not walk side by side, Will’s rank is far lower, and of all of the men there, he is, in essence, the most useless. Though no one bothers him, they are interested. And it amuses Will that no one makes the attempt to come near him unnecessarily; he can almost imagine the way Draco’s lips would twist at the notion.

He notices that of all the men, the quietest is the one who is meant to be leading them. Perseus doesn’t speak much, nor does he laugh at or contribute to the jokes when the walk gets dull and tiring. He doesn’t appear much older than Will, though he doesn’t cast his eye back often enough to judge for sure. When he does, however, it is a look without pity or judgement. Will, for his part, doesn’t seek out anyone’s gaze but Draco’s, and rarely gets that.

When they stop to camp for the night, it is within a forest. Tall grasses and trees protecting them from the weather should it turn harsh. Will doesn’t join the men by the fire, again due to his rank and personal preference, but he is grateful for the food offered him when it’s passed around. After, he retreats to where Draco has laid his things, and waits. They are on the outskirts of the camp, as Draco has offered to take first watch, and the quiet is welcome. Will closes his eyes and lies back against the ground, knees drawn up comfortably, arms by his head in rest.

At the camp, there is a sound of shuffling feet and the echoing metallic clang of swords crossing. Will supposes that practice is expected, considering their journey and the soldiers’ notorious lack of patience for just being somewhere without action, and just lets the sounds by without a second thought. But when he feels a familiar rough palm slide down his thighs and spread them wider, perhaps ten minutes later, his mouth quirks. When he opens one eye to regard his master, however, Draco looks far from amused.

He settles over him, the bulk of his body between Will's knees as he rests. Perseus was a fool and had pride enough to kill them all. He refused to use his gifts, instead holding tight to the idea he was mortal and powerless when he could not shed all of his gifts and become truly human. There was much about him that simply irritated Draco - and more that suggested men, good men and proved to be going on this fool's quest at all, would die before he learned.

It had not eased his temper any to find himself beaten when he had driven the fisherman far enough to find his courage. 

"If it wasn’t a defiance to the king I would cut his throat and leave him for the gods," he mutters, because to Will it does not matter. Draco has sworn to protect Cephus - but he would rather have been allowed to do so on his own, rather than be assigned to follow another only on the merit that perhaps a God had sired him.

He found he had no patience, and he could still feel steel at his throat. He settles against Will instead, to will his heartbeat slower so he can keep patience enough to see this through.

Will sighs out and opens both his eyes to blink languidly up at Draco, spreading his legs wider and curling them up around the guard’s hips as he settles.

“He’s silent enough to ignore, ignore him.” Will replies quietly, keeping his arms as they are for the moment in case Draco wants them somewhere in particular later. He chews his lip and refrains from reminding the man that he had ignored Will all day as well, in his silence. He’s not angry at him, but he can feel how the irritation is making the man’s muscles tremble, can feel how his heart is still pounding from whatever it is that had happened.

He arches his back a little but doesn’t do more. He doesn’t need to provoke Draco here, he’ll get to him in his own time, well enough that Will is sure that the next day his silence will be regarded as strange by the way he can give voice when he wants to. He doesn’t think on that, though, not yet. And just waits. 

"He is sullen," Draco corrects, in a tone that expresses how little he thinks of it. And the man lacked discipline or the wisdom to accept the boons he had been granted. It is a mistake that Draco wars with himself over - the skill, instincts and strength in something that suggest he was as presented. A demigod. A tool to be used - or perhaps delivered at a cost. 

Draco suspects the latter.

He takes a deep breath, and shows his teeth. He will do his best not to let it happen. Wondering if it was a mistake to bring Will, and at the same time knowing that the man's presence was likely the only way to keep Draco's anger in check, Draco pushes Will's tunic up past his hips. "Easier to ignore with a distraction."

He slides a palm over Will, in promise, perhaps apology for the long day.

Will bites his lip lightly and arches up again, sliding his feet to the ground again to rest there as Draco touches him. it’s familiar and comfortable, and Will arches his back enough to see the camp behind them, upside down and just blurry shadows as the twilight sets in before night. He smiles and returns to watching Draco carefully. He can see he’s angry, frustrated with the situation and the man, perhaps even with having Will here… but he is taking advantage regardless, as Will knew he would want to if he came, and so he leans up to kiss him.

The armor he wears makes Draco harder to navigate than Will is used to, but his hands find skin soon enough and skim under the heavy leather to stroke him in turn, slightly harsher than how he was being touched, but only in implication, in permission to be so with Will if that was what he needed. When he breaks the kiss, both are breathing a little heavier, and Will swallows before flicking his eyes up with an amused smile.

“Do you want them to hear?” he asks, and it’s only partially in jest. An assertion of power could come through battle or conquest, could come with control and silence. Power Draco had, the men he led respected him, but the only way it could be shown to someone not of his company would be through battle – which would come later, Will is certain – or through dominance. Dominance over a willing party, where enjoyment is mutual but control clear. He knows what he’s offering, knows that of the two of them the one likely to be regarded as lesser is himself. Will blinks and waits, one hand curled in the grass by his side, the other twisting gently on the upstroke as he keeps the pressure constant but not distracting enough for Draco not to answer him.

The question is unexpected, catches Draco unready for the implications. There has never been much question about the balance of power, even given how much Draco does allow Will to push for what he wants - encourages it, usually. He exhales a breath and considers - he has never asked Will to debase himself - their relationship was not the business of anyone else.

But it could serve a purpose here, as Will suggested. They both, however, would need to keep this company for the foreseeable future. Lifting a hand, he smoothes the curls from Will's forehead - aside from the politics of the move, there was something visceral and appealing about laying his claim in obviousness. Putting his mark on Will - the youngest, the lowest in status - might protect him from the unexpected. His men are good, but they are Soldiers, and known to make advances, expected to. They would not dare infringe if they were certain to face his displeasure for doing so. 

"If it would not render traveling in this company unbearable," he allows at last, and then a low groan at the next motion that Will makes - perhaps in reassurance or just opportunistic encouragement, which he mirrors - in encouragement or good natured revenge. "I'm not certain the target is civilized enough to take the point."

He huffs out a laugh, knowing the irony - he was hardly civilized himself.

Will makes a quiet sound and pauses for a moment to consider, himself. Is it a whim he can live with? They don’t know how long the journey will be, what they will face, who they will lose and when. And the soldiers aren’t stupid men, they have needs of their own and perception. Will has seen the looks and returned them, amused but never inviting.

“I am the only one in the party not a soldier,” he reminds him quietly, “They know my purpose. Perhaps they should know it’s also my pleasure.” He tilts his head a little and shifts back enough to pull his tunic over his head and sit back, arms behind him and eyes narrowed. He can stay quiet as easily as he can project his voice. 

There is a difference between knowing and confrontation, as Draco is aware. He leans back as Will pulls off his tunic and undoes his own armor at least, shrugging out of the cuirass and heavy belts, still considering, passing his tongue over his lower lip and glancing up toward the diffuse light of the camp. 

Will doesn’t ask Draco if this will happen this evening, he knows it will, what he’s asking is how known he would like the act to be. They’re in safe enough territory that worrying about giving their position away is unnecessary. Will can feel the irritation still radiating off the man in waves under the contemplative and warm arousal, and finds that he adopts the emotion himself, quickly, with nothing more needed than to know Draco feels it.

He bites the inside of his bottom lip, just enough to shift it, before letting it go, but he says nothing more for the moment, just sits back, on display and inviting, and waits.

"Try not to sound as if you're in distress," he suggests at last, his tone going lower as he leans down just as Will is hoisting himself up on his elbows, and he takes advantage of the bared chest to lick a broad stripe over one of Will's nipples. "He is stupid enough to mount a rescue."

Stupid may be an unkind term - inexperienced is perhaps more accurate. He does not feel well-disposed enough toward Perseus at the moment to give him the benefit of kind language. Instead he puts his mouth to better use, in a long line down - now resolved to having Will free his voice, Draco intends to give him some real inspiration for it. There is something pleasing about the notion anyway, the chance to stake his claim, and blow off his irritation.

He does not waste further time, simply leans down and takes Will deep in his mouth - softer than his hands but with the faint hint of his teeth - he can almost feel the echo to his irritation in Will, and he knows this will not be slow or tender and gentle. It will be intense, aching... and he wants it that way.

Will, for his part, doesn’t even have a chance to tell Draco he has never felt distressed with him, when his voice breaks loose, surprised and far from upset. From what Will can remember, he has never experienced this. Not something this passionate and decisive. Perhaps at the temple one of the boys had gotten it into his mind to try, but never at the brothel. And now Will wonders if he can even last long enough to make this revenge enjoyable.

His breathing is far from even, and he’s harder faster than he has been with the teasing and touching of any other time they’d done this. It would be humiliating if it wasn’t so good, and he moans again, not yet loud enough to carry but loud enough for Draco to know it will, soon, if he keeps this going. He drops one hand to Draco’s head and curls his fingers in the braids there, entertains the notion of using one to control the speed and depth, and instantly dismisses the notion. This isn’t about him. he’s a tool. A very willing tool.

“Nnnn,” Will twists his body a little, arching up just enough to notice before pressing to the grass again and turning his head away. The moans come quicker now, short, pleasured things that grow in volume but retain the gentle tone. He is enjoying this, immensely, and makes a point to return the favor when he can remember how to think again. he brings one leg to rest over Draco’s shoulder and draws his nails over his scalp.

The response is impossible to miss - Will goes from budding interest to almost painfully hard against Draco's tongue in a span of seconds, and he notes the response, treasures it. He hadn't expected to find this new - had thought the temple would have taken all the newness from him. Will is twisting and arching, clawing at his hair in a way that warns this would be over fast for him. Regretfully, Draco draws back - he would have liked to taken him right over, but they do not have the usual leisure they normally enjoy.

He leaves Will with an apologetic lick along the underside of his cock, then draws the foreskin back with his fingers, unable to resist showing him the effects his tongue could leave in sensation against the head, pushed and pointed along the slit, and then he sits up. More of that at another time. 

Now however, he curls his fist tight around Will's length as he reaches for the pack - though it promises to be a difficult endeavor, since he doesn't know how it was packed, and when the first pocket yields nothing, he growls faintly.

Will nearly sobs at the feeling, biting his lip to contain it before he remembers the reason behind this and letting it go. he rolls his hips up to the rough hold, turning his head to pant against the ground as he watched Draco move, seeking with his free hand. And if he hadn’t been so close, and still so overwhelmed with the new sensation, he would have answered him faster. Instead, he forces himself still, body trembling with need and anticipation, and he licks his lips before turning back to look at the sky.

“I wrapped it in canvas,” he murmurs, “It should be in the middle…”

Above them, the sky has darkened significantly, and is he turns his head enough, Will can see the fire that’s been tended to in the camp, though other sounds from the soldier’s there are muted. Perhaps not even there at all, considering their activity. He’d wrapped the jar with oil to keep it from shattering, and set it far enough into the bowels of the pack to keep it safe. But he had not forgotten it. he gasps when Draco lets him go to search the pack more thoroughly, and turns to his side to watch the camp more closely.

He can’t see anyone, nothing at all but vague shadows, but it feels as though the entire forest is holding its breath. A shiver runs down Will’s spine at the knowledge and his cheeks darken. The reality of the situation sinking in is a little more overwhelming than the idea had been, though he does not regret it. he’s brought back to the present by Draco’s hand skimming his side, tickling enough to get Will to turn back. Then he spreads his legs again, wide, and slides a slick palm over him again, a few strokes to get Will back to how desperate he was, and all he can do is moan his encouragement.

"If you last through," Draco promises, working to get the jar open - he had seen the anxious look toward camp, and lifted his own eyes to be certain no one was coming this way - though his guard was down enough that he could not be totally and entirely aware of the surroundings he supposed. If the others had decided to try and catch a glimpse - they were well enough hidden. "I'll finish what I started."

He presses slick fingers against him, at first just spreading a wide swath of the oil before he presses - this was never something Draco rushed, no matter his hurry. He rarely indulged this far, but Will had pressed for it in the first weeks, curiously at first and then with increasing interest. Draco didn't observe the social stigma that it made someone a lesser man to enjoy it - but the preparation seemed agonizingly slow compared to his memories of hurried encounters. Usually he is too desperate for it, and settles himself with pushing between Will's thighs.

He leans down as his fingers finally find entrance, pushes his mouth against Will's neck and closes his teeth there , just hard enough to feel, as Will twists against him, impatient - but he won't go further until he hears confirmation that his words have been understood.

Will gasps and brings his hands up to drag over Draco’s back to his shoulders, a long whine escaping him at the slow press, the slightly sharp sting against his throat.

“I’ll last,” he promises breathlessly, the rest of his words stolen by a low whine of need. He has broken such promises before, and has never received punishment. Draco is always far too pleased with how well he has managed to undo his boy than to lament over his lack of endurance. Will has certainly proven his aptitude for the latter at other times. Now, though, Will arches, pushing his hips down against the fingers against him.

This isn’t often that they do this, both either too impatient or too tired to take the time, but of everything else they’ve done – Draco’s clever mouth and its new promises aside – penetration is what makes Will lose himself enough to have no control of how he moves or what he cries out. it releases him of any inhibition. He’s grateful for the patience, to get used to the burn and swallows before turning his head back, arching as he had done before this started to see the camp behind them.

“Nnnn more,” he whimpers, tugging Draco’s hair lightly for the sensation before dragging his hands down his back again.

The request is complied with, two fingers pressing in long and slow as Will arches up to ease it, working and twisting to spread the oil. The responses - the sounds Will made as he did this reassured him that it was not simply Will trying to be pleasing - the way he pushed for it at times when other options were available. Draco works his fingers until the slide is easy, until Will stretches easily for his third.

Will shifts against him, arches up into it and then finally makes a demanding sound, his hands gripping at Draco's shoulders, at his hair, and the guard soothes with a noise - he knows, he won't draw it out any longer. Normally he would curl a hand around Will's cock as he eased in, but he gives his boy a little mercy, a little relief to help keep his promise and just helps brace his leg up instead. 

The first noise out of Will's mouth he soothes with a kiss, before they both have to break to pant - this is tight, hot. He eases the last few inches with shallow thrusts starting a rhythm, hands curled at Will's side to pull them together. When he slides home he feels the tension at last begin to ease, and he does not cease his rhythm even then, though he does watch Will closely as he moves shallowly, to be sure he isn't hurting him - the whimpers are pleased and pleading, but even a display of dominance is not worth pushing him too far. 

Will’s eyes roll back in pleasure and close. The pressure is just as good, just as tight and unbelievably close. His breathing matches the shallow thrusts, coming quick and loud until he parts his lips wider and gives voice. The moans are high, loud things that spoke of no control, no want to. He brings a hand up to tug his own hair, other seeking out to draw up Draco’s thigh, up his stomach, letting go to flex his fingers, begging for him to lean closer.

The next kiss does little to muffle his moans, and when they break for air, it’s Draco’s name on his lips as he writhes to push back against him, loud and needy and unmistakeable. Then the angle changes, just enough, and Will’s cry echoes loud and short through the clearing before he goes silent, brows furrowed and lips parted, as he keeps his willpower on holding on, on keeping his promise.

But he’s close, close enough for his begging to become quiet, whispers of want and encouragement and needy, desperate begging to Draco to move more, deeper, harder, clenching his muscles to help him along and nearly losing his mind when he drags over that spot again and makes him see stars.

Will is wild here, and while his mouth is slack with his moans and his eyes are dark, they never lose focus until the very end, even nearly closed as they are as his teeth meet and a whimper forces past anyway, with no words at all. Draco obliges him for everything he asks, though he has to drop his hands to the grass below and grip hard to lever himself into it.

It's with hands gripping in his hair and nails in his shoulder that he finishes with a noise that is more a sigh than a growl. He holds enough presence of mind to reach between them, and when his fingers curl, Will pleads mindlessly. 

Draco is still panting when he pulls free and slides down Will's body to keep his promise, but Will's needy sound, the way his back arches up into it as the sensations change quickly and Draco takes him deep again, then draws back to tease the head with his tongue is worth fighting through the haze of his own release for this. Will anchors himself on a braid, on the ground beneath and writhes into it helpless with pleasure, and Draco... for the moment feels more in control. 

It is easier to forget with a distraction, especially one so pleasingly willing.

Will doesn’t last long, body pulling taut and breath hitching as he allows himself to finally break, nothing but heavy breathing heralding the sound, and he drops back, chest rising and falling heavily as he tries to swallow air. He groans, very quietly, and licks his lips before letting his head roll to the side and burying his nose in the soft grass there.

He isn’t even sure he’s conscious until he feels Draco draw his lips over his neck, up his jaw and to his ear, murmuring that he is very pleased, that Will had done very, very well. He hums and smiles, tilting his head back a little more before turning it just enough to nuzzle back in reassurance. He needs to breathe, he needs to remember which way is up. when he turns just a little further, he’s stopped briefly with a sloppy languid kiss, that he returns with as much enthusiasm as his exhausted body can dredge up.

He feels spent. Completely and utterly fucked out and used and perfect, and in the back of his mind he wonders just how the camp would respond to them in the morning. Just how they had responded just now. How many had wanted what Draco had? How many had wanted to stop it? it doesn’t matter, because Will has the man heavy over him and breathing just as heavily, and he manages to move just enough to drape his arms around the man’s back, curling up to hold his shoulders gently.

“Oh, I could sleep forever,” he breathes, lips still parted on a smile.

"You can sleep until sunrise," Draco corrects, distantly but not without humor. He reaches up and smooths back Will's hair gently from his forehead, thoroughly pleased and satisfyingly distracted. There was the question of the rest of the party, but at the very least it should warn them off from making advances.

If it didn't, Draco would warn them off personally. If he had been uncertain about bringing Will - he was less so now. It was still dangerous, but Draco was less likely to kill Perseus himself this way.

He curls his arms around Will and pulls him close, settles onto his side for the few moments of sunlight they have left, and then heaves a gentle sigh. "I have first watch," he reminds, pushing a soothing hand over Will's stomach as he begins to get up, returning the man's tunic to him. "Set the bedding where you'd like it and I'll join you when I can." 

Draco's smile is subtle in the last reaches of the sunlight, more in his eyes than anywhere else, before he pulls his armor on. He is grateful for what he was offered - given, in fact. Will was invaluable, and he perhaps needed the boy as much as Will needed him. It was a rare enough thing to find. He works the last strap, and reaches down to gently stroke through Will's hair.

At camp, when he settles to take watch by the fire, no one challenges him. Even Perseus keeps his eyes lowered and his voice mute. It is hard to tell if that's simply an extension of his usual demeanor, or he has something to say about what he's heard that he does not dare venture. 

-

The scorpions are a surprise. Perhaps not the creatures themselves so much as the fact that the entire party – what was left of it – was now riding them, that was the surprise. To Will, at least, Draco endures it as though it’s completely commonplace. And perhaps for someone of his experience, it is. They need to make up time. Gods wait for no man, and angry gods wait for fewer. The unusual ride will get them to the Graeae within two days, as opposed to five days on foot, and after Will’s generous offer to relieve stress, he’s more than grateful. Even now he’s enjoying lying on his side at the far back of the calash as opposed to sitting with the rest of the party.

He’s tired, unused to such adventures and so much adrenaline vibrating through his system at once. Fearing for his own life and Draco’s – more for Draco’s, since he can’t help. He watches him now, from the soft fur he’s lying on, face buried in it enough to just have one eye open, watches him take in the rest of his men, calculate how many will make it farther, ignore Perseus’ joke with an iron composure.

‘Do you never smile?’

Will bites his lip gently as he does, watching Draco regard the man – or perhaps the question – with apparent indifference. He knows for a fact that Draco smiles. He does so often, languid and sleepy in the mornings, amused at a particular turn of phrase or situation, downright dirty when Will’s pushed him enough… he does smile. But perhaps Will hasn’t realized how rarely he does with others. It makes him feel almost undeserving of such things. 

But he keeps his voice to himself, and when Draco looks past the party – once the conversation has moved on – Will meets his gaze long enough to slowly nuzzle into the furs and pretend to close his eyes, keeping them open just enough to see him, to notice the look, and the way his eyes narrow just a little in yet another smile he knows is only for him.

Draco smiled when he was pleased. Little about this situation or the dangers they had faced pleased him. He doubted the answer they would be given by the Graeae would lead them anywhere safer. He wonders if the loss of life in the fight against the scorpions would be enough to convince Perseus of the dire consequences of his attitude - though he had at least held up his end in the fight. Well enough to jest. 

It was part of the joy of living, a change for Perseus, to feel the need to laugh after a near death experience. At least he had not gotten himself killed, when he was still stubbornly refusing to use what he had been granted. 

Most of the curious looks that had gone Will's way at the beginning of the journey had ceased. The hoplites did not treat him unkindly, he had found his position under Draco's protection and while they weren't quite friends, they were comrades by situation. Fellows. 

It's Io who has been most curious about Will, taking him under her wing in a way. While Draco had given him a knife - at the edge of the desert when danger had seemed certain to descend upon them. A knife, sharp and well tended and the instruction not to fight but to defend himself. 

But Io has taken to him, and to teaching him the bow. She has found something relatable in Will. She watches Perseus with the same protective eyes. She is also settled in the back of the covered space, fanning herself lightly with a folding paper fan. She knows Will is awake.

"He thinks Perseus is leading them to death," she observes, twitching the fan in the air. It is cooler under the hide and fabric shades, but not by much. The rocking is endless, like a boat on the sea, but not unpleasant after one got used to it. "That they will all die to deliver him into heroism. Perhaps so, but Perseus is the only one who can stand as fully against the gods as he desires to."

Will ducks his head and turns just enough to see her. No one had found it odd when a woman had joined the quest, no one seemed to worry for her safety as Draco had worried for Will’s, and she had a strange ability to vanish from their party completely before returning, safe and sound and with information no one seemed to know but that was pertinent to their cause. Will wonders, often, if she herself isn’t part God with the number of years she has lived as a curse from one. She is kind to him but doesn’t smother, and her training is just as harsh as any man’s would be, though Will is benefiting from it.

“I’ve never seen him suffer fools,” Will offers in turn, shifting languidly in the furs to regard her better. He watches the way her mouth quirks but she says nothing else, the fan slowing but never stopping, “And Perseus, despite not being a fool, has made a lot of foolish choices, to Draco’s mind.”

“He has no faith in the Gods yet,” Io returns gently, turning her fan enough to direct her voice to Will alone, “He believes it is by their hand his family is dead. He has been raised by man and refuses the God’s gifts. He doesn’t believe he needs them.”

Will thinks on this a moment, stretching a little and turning his head to look at the men at the front of the calash again. they’re in discussion but it’s not as serious a thing as others he’d heard. All of them relish being alive, in their own way, relish that they have another day to show why they were spared.

“And Draco feels he’s not enough without them.” He replies, “That his skills alone are not enough, that the gifts Perseus is shunning are given for a reason, just as their lives are spared when they are, or taken.” Will doesn’t want to think about Draco losing his life to the quest, though he’s aware of how likely and possible it is. The fight with the beasts they’re riding opened his eyes as stories and legends never can.

"To his mind he left three corpses where he could have walked out with living men in this fight," she agrees, and her eyes wash over Perseus. Perhaps the man would be better for the experience. Perhaps Perseus would reconsider the gifts he'd been given. She would encourage him, again, to do so. "He worries about a specific loss the most."

They must, however, stop the Kraken. As terrible as this quest was, she knew the dimensions of the creature that would rise up from the sea. Argos itself would feel the wrath of the gods - an endless cycle of retaliation for slights. It seemed everyone - even the Djinn, reclusive and secretive as they were, are willing to play on stakes like these. 

She quirks the corner of her mouth up at him. "He fights harder with you behind him." It's an astute observation. Whether it is cause for worry or not is up to Will. The fan pauses, hiding everything but her slightly coy eyes behind the fan. "Perhaps it would not go amiss to remind him that you both are alive."

Io glances at the Captain, leaning back with his feet up and his eyes closed, hands folded. The one still figure amidst the laughing, talking hoplites - they are reliving their victory, revelling in being alive. Draco is quiet - he looks tired, not celebratory as any survivor should.

Will returns the expression but it’s not quite as enthusiastic, before he turns his head to watch his soldier take any rest he can. But it’s saddening to watch him not partake in the celebration, small and quiet as it is, of survival. Will thinks that as good a reason he is for Draco to fight, he is also a reason he does not allow himself to rest, to relax. And Will isn’t sure there’s anything he can do to get the man to understand that he has enough to survive, even if it’s his tenacity and not his skill with a blade or bow that does that.

The rest of the day passes easily enough. it’s the safest and most relaxed any of them have felt since the beginning of their journey, perhaps because on top of a giant scorpion there is very little one can do beyond enjoy the ride. Some of the soldiers retire early, wisely taking any rest they can and as much of it as possible. Io leaves towards dusk, running a hand gently through Will’s hair as only Draco would be allowed, before passing through the calash and out. Will doesn’t see her again.

It is completely dark by the time Draco returns to Will’s side, armor removed and set at the front with the rest, and silently joins him. the night isn’t quiet around them, the scorpion shifts constantly, the squeak of leather and groan of the wooden supports keeping the soldiers on its back an ever-present sound. Will shifts back against the warmth, feeling familiar, heavy arms pull him back possessively and Draco sigh against his neck. He chews his lip and turns slowly to face him.

“Why do you not smile with them?” he whispers.

Pulling Will against him, Draco tries to put his answer together beyond the concepts he had developed instinctively in his years as a soldier. He slides his arms around Will's waist and eases them together, as they rock along their way, and he glances back once at the direction of the fabric - they had partitioned the calash for the evening, perhaps to make it easier to sleep with the illusion of privacy. Perhaps to keep them from all rolling together in sleep.

The hunters are speaking lowly at the front, trying to entice answers from the stolid Djinn driving the animal. Every so often, they make each other laugh.

"A soldier may revel in what he has gained by surviving," he settles on. "A commander must remember what has been lost by those who didn't. It is a reassurance to know that your leader does not value your life lightly."

He reaches up and pushes his fingers through Will's hair, working out any tangles gently, and privately lamenting any time or convenience to bathe. It was the luxury the city had most taught him to appreciate. "We should reach the witches tomorrow evening. We can't know where they'll send us afterward, if they have an answer for us."

Will turns his hand into the touch softly and regards him. it makes sense, and the soldiers would be blind to not see that Draco cares for them, for their lives, and that he respects them.

“But in your memory of them can you not also remind yourself that you live?” he asks after a moment. There is less tension in Draco’s shoulders than there was when they first set off on these strange creatures, but he had slept most of the afternoon surrounded by his men, keeping the company but not participating.

“That your men do?” he bites his lip a little, it’s light enough from the moon filtering through the coverings to see by, “That I do?”

He doesn’t know what to give the man other than that simple reassurance. Draco carries everything on his shoulders when it should not be one man’s burden. Their victory has left the men relaxed enough to sleep, comfortable around each other to joke, to accept those into their company closer than they had before. Will had seen Perseus smile, relax more into the atmosphere, despite his own burden and displeasure with the quest. And yet Draco remained stoic, quiet and serious.

"I haven't forgotten," Draco reassures Will. He leans in and presses his mouth Will's bitten lower lip gently. He certainly was grateful that they were both alive, and he had hardly forgotten. Other things occupied his mind, was all. He does not exactly smile, but he kisses Will instead.

"I have come back alone from such endeavors in the past," Draco sighs, explaining his worry. These men did not deserve that. "And I don't know where our ultimate destination will be." 

There are some places he would not even let Will follow, no matter how he begged or pleaded. They would soon know, for now Draco tries to let go of his worries, as they rock gently in the creaking shelter afforded them. "You don't need to worry about me this much," he assures Will. Draco has campaigned before, led men before. 

Will slides suggestively against him, pressing their mouths together again, and the motion does some for the friction between them without any effort on their parts, and Draco sighs into their kiss at the sensation. Yes, they were alive. He pulls Will a little tighter to him, slides a knee between his boy's legs, perhaps to remind them both with a little more physical permanence.

Will sucks in a breath but doesn’t otherwise make a sound. He ducks his head just a little before turning back over his shoulder to regard the only wall they have between them and the next person sleeping beside. He shifts again, the feeling very much welcome, but turns back with a strange smile on his face, almost a challenge. To pace one patience against another. They will have to be silent, here. After their first camp, the relationship between them has not been a secret but it would not do to have it so obviously played out again.

“Stop worrying about me as much.” Will replies quietly, “You will not return alone.”

He brings his lips to Draco’s throat this time, gentle pressure and no teeth, just a close, intimate thing between them that Will treasures more than he thinks he will ever voice. There are comforts and realities, and realities are such that their relationship is not one of lovers but of convenience.

At least by status. By Will’s self-imposed cynicism. 

He slides lower, pushing Draco to lie on his back as he does. He wants to know if he can give him the same surprising and unbelievable pleasure Draco had given him at the camp, doubts he will be half as good, if that, but determined to try. to remind him that they live and should be happy for it.

The determination is clear in Will's eyes, and Draco relents, gives him the permission that he so rarely denies him. He lifts his hands to settle easily on Will's shoulders, and notes to himself to be still and quiet - there is too much proximity here for anything else - though the others are either quiet with sleep or still talking amongst themselves from the lowered voices, it does not take much to catch attention.

For once he surrenders entirely, trusting Will to see to things without direction, without Draco's fingers coaxing or hurrying him - though he does not intend for him to go un-rewarded either. He stretches himself out flat amongst the blankets and furs, sitting up as Will moves further down to pull off his tunic. 

"I will stop worrying," he assures, in a low tone, and then has to pull his lower lip between his teeth and bite hard when Will curls a hand around him and licks his lips, looking up the length of Draco's body - it's dark, but not so dark he can't make out the shine in Will's eyes that promises he will make this as difficult as he can. 

Draco pulls the inside of his cheek between his teeth and bites down, trying to measure his breaths.

Will appreciates the attempt, knows that the worry is hard to quell, because his own won’t be. He swallows lightly and leans down, his eyes falling closed as he tries to remember what Draco did to bring him to that level of desperation he was at. When he parts his lips he doesn’t take him far, far enough to feel the weight against his tongue, to press the soft skin to the roof of his mouth. He breathes out through his nose and sucks gently as he pulls off again, lips pressed together to the end to not make a sound.

This time when he takes Draco down he keeps his eyes open, licking first a thick line from the base to the head before taking him in as he had before, starting a slow pace and using his tongue to draw lines and patterns over him.

His reward is the tension of muscles, the tightening of Draco’s grip against his shoulder, the way his eyes fall almost fully closed to stay composed before opening again. for his part, Will tries harder, keeping the pace slow but increasing how far he goes until he hits his limit, humming quietly in frustration that he can’t take more. Though that alone seems to be enough to pull a response from Draco. So when he pulls back and lets his hand take over for a moment, he leans forward with a smile.

Draco's eyes open further to meet Will's, hazy with pleasure as the other leans up, still stroking. He arches into Will's grip, lifts his hands to curl around Will's shoulders, and catches his breath a little - holding it had kept him quiet but he felt dizzy with sensation.

“We both know we can’t,” Will murmurs, finally addressing Draco’s promise before kissing him, allowing the man to pull him close to deepen it, to tighten his fingers in his hair. When they break, Will grins before moving down to just take the head in his lips again, sucking harder than before, then relaxing completely to just draw the tip of his tongue over him until the urgent grip is back. Then, almost vindictively, he hums again.

Draco's breath hitches in and he rolls his hips up very slowly into the sensation. He cannot use his voice to show how he approves, all he can convey is through touch, through the way his grip tightens against Will's shoulder instinctively, strokes once over the back of his head before he lifts the back of his wrist to his own mouth and settles his teeth against it, just enough to pinch. He is never loud, but rarely does he need to be utterly silent.

He resolves to have his revenge, considers that he might sooner rather than later, and pushes at Will's shoulder until the other draws off - sucking hard as he does so and leaving Draco wanting to hiss or growl at the sensation, before he draws Will up again to kiss him roughly, and then shifts him, forces him to pivot on his hands and knees until they are reversed to each other, with Will's knees settled above either of Draco's shoulders - it takes some doing to do this wordlessly, and he gets more than one confused look - upside down when Will resettles on his knees and elbows.

Draco answers the question as wordlessly as he had put it into Will's head, by reaching up and curling his hand around Will's length to draw it down into his mouth in turn, curious to see if his boy can keep his focus while being similarly pulled apart. For as much as they worried, neither was dead yet - the threat that it could change meant they had to hold to what they had, to not mourn before it was time. It was important for Draco to remember.

Will’s fingers curl in the fur under them in surprise but he keeps his silence. He swallows, hard, and supposes that Draco is fair in seeking such revenge on him. perhaps of anything they have done together, this will be the least likely to get them caught and humiliated, and one that is just perfect enough to remember pleasure, forget everything else. He lowers his lips and resumes his slow sucking, one hand curled at the base of Draco’s cock to keep him steady and where Will wants him.

It doesn’t take long before Will finds his pace faltering, thighs trembling a little as he tries to keep himself still, but his back arches unmistakeably, his legs spread wider to bring himself closer to Draco’s mouth, and when he pulls away to breathe, it’s ragged and harsh against the soldier’s thigh. It is going to be very, very difficult to beat this man at patience and resistance. But Will refuses to give in yet, not this fast, not that easily. He tongues his top lip before kissing the soft skin of Draco’s thigh, the cut V of muscle that leads him lower, until he can suck his balls into his mouth and distract the man another way.

To his ears, they are quiet. Their breaths, when caught, are smothered by the shifting of the animal under them, the creak of the leather and wood. He can no longer hear the hunters talking to the Djinn, and assumes they’ve gone to sleep like the rest. When Will pulls away this time, he barely hides his moan. He’s very, very close and almost wants to ask Draco to press a hand against his lips to keep him silent. He has never had to be, not with Draco, and he feels deprived of showing him just how much pleasure this is giving him. he feels himself released from the delicious, hot pressure and turns before it can start again, pressing close and rolling their hips together as he tastes himself on Draco’s lips.

“I can’t,” he swallows lightly and allows a smile, “Stay this quiet…”

Draco prefers him loud, appreciative. There is an empowerment in that, but perhaps this - between their mouths it was too good, too unusual - even he had to split his focus as he had in order to keep his sounds to himself. 

He keeps his tone very low. "I was surprised that it was new for you," he answers, distracting, rolling his hips up in answer and working a hand between them to curl them both in his fist. He kisses Will again, urgently - he had been close too when the other had pulled away, and now he is frustrated enough to push for it as they slide together. 

Pushing a hand over Will's mouth, they can still lean forehead to forehead as he strokes them roughly, as they rush themselves through it - drawing it out won't do them any favors for keeping quiet. He's panting, not quite audibly loud but his breath is rushed, and his hand moves to hold tight to Will's shoulder when Will drops his hand to help, gives his last few surges into his fist, and he can feel light tickles of sound against his palm as he returns to grip just Will's cock and rushes him after, leaving them both sticky and trying to catch their breath. 

Will is barely keeping himself quiet, even with the help of Draco’s palm against his lips he has to bite down on the skin, just a gentle sting, as he allows himself to let go and channels his usual whimpers and keens into long breaths and the gentle adding and ebbing of pressure against Draco’s palm. He’s shaking when he’s through, overwhelmed and sensitive and suddenly very, very tired.

Draco eases his hand away from Will's mouth only slowly - well aware of how whimpers tended to work their way free even in the aftereffects, and pulls him close against his chest. It's quiet and easy for now, and Draco resolves to give him whatever he wants when they get back - resolves to retain his optimism for that outcome. It will be good to give the boy back his voice. He reaches to drag a blanket over them, pulls Will tight against him, possessive and protective, and lets the rocking motion slowly lull him down toward sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"I fight more strongly when there is something to lose - though I suppose all of Argos should be motivation enough."_
> 
> _Having more than an empty quarters to return to was a strangely powerful motivation. The notion that he wasn't sure what Will could do without him made the sensation stronger. He had made arrangements for the boy, should he not return, but he doubts they'll be satisfying. And of course they depended on Argos itself surviving - on their success._
> 
> _There aren't enough words to settle that forth, so instead he simply reaches out, and settles his arm around Will's shoulders and pulls him close. "You're the reason I'll come back."_
> 
> And so, as all quests, this one must come to an end as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Film-verse level angst. But what else? Read on!
> 
> Yes, there is sex ^^

“Hades.” Will blinks in disbelief. “You’re going to hades?”

He had not joined the men in seeking out the Graeae, but he had found everyone returning from the short journey completely struck into silence. Not even the hunters babbled like they usually did. He tried to catch Draco’s eye but he had shaken his head and motioned for Will to step away with him. the look Io gave him had not helped either.

Will chews his lip and takes a deep breath before letting it out, lips still parted in partial disbelief. Hades isn’t a guaranteed death, one could make their way there if they knew how and paid the fee, but their souls remained their own. But it’s not a place mortals go without fear, without consideration for never returning from. He licks his bottom lip into his mouth before nodding and letting it go before tilting his head up.

“When do we leave?”

The question earns a passing sweep of Draco's gaze, a speculative look at the remaining party, and then he refuses to comment, pulling his teeth over his lower lip with a sigh. They leave now, by the way the party has arrayed - there is little time to spare. There is no way to know if the Kraken has already emerged, if it was not already descending on Argos. They must move on. 

On the threat of the Underworld, some of the party balks. Only Suleiman of the Djinn stays, and he is poor excuse for the two hunters they lose. Draco blames them as little as Perseus does, and he is quiet, reserved. He refuses Will's consoling touch or curious glances while they march.

The landscape grows bleaker, grey and brown like a desert but colder - as if all the heat has been sucked down into it like a vortex pulls water. When it is too dark to march anymore, they make camp very near to the river itself, huddling close to the fire, shivering in the heavy skins they had not thought to need. It's then that Draco finally settles down next to Will, as Io and Perseus consult, as the rest of the hoplites sit quiet and concerned.

"You aren't coming."

Will had anticipated another attempt at dissuasion and rolls his shoulders a little under the warm covering. He doesn’t want to go into hades. No one in their right mind does. But he wants even less to see Draco go in without him. Will is well aware of how useless he is in battle, Io has taught him enough for defense but his aim is unpractised with the bow, the power behind any blow he can land with the knife is weak. He knows. But he also knows that he can’t idly sit by when the rest of the party goes into the underworld. 

“You know the phrase will hold no weight.” He says finally, turning to him and offering a small smile. “I’ve come with you this far, and I’m going further.”

He watches as the soldiers settle as close to the fire as they can, quiet and tired, watches Io console Perseus on the journey, touch his face gently before pulling her hand away and standing up. he bites the inside of his lip gently, but the longer the silence drags between them, the heavier the pressure becomes. Will’s heart is pounding at the notion that he will be denied this, and that he will have to fight for it.

"I've already let you follow me further than I would like," Draco answers, and he keeps his gaze ahead, on the fire. His hands stay loose in his lap, draped over his knees as he crouches. "I will not let you follow me into the underworld."

He exhales a long breath, tips his chin up further and steels his resolve. "This is as far as you go. There is nothing there but death and a Gorgon. It may welcome us in easily enough but it will not let us back out again without a fight."

Draco makes to stand, pulling the fur tighter against his shoulders. "We will buy our way out in blood, and I will not have it be yours." It seems to be his final word on the matter, because he moves off toward the fire, before Will can try to dissuade him, before he can beg and turn his soft, wide eyes on Draco and break his resolve. In this case, it would do neither of them any favors.

Will scrambles up before Draco can get far, before he can retreat into the safety of others and call the argument completed. He catches his arm a few steps away and urges him back, though Draco doesn’t go.

“Why do you think I came this far?” he hisses, still trying to keep the argument quiet, though it’s getting harder, “Why do you think I followed you to where we are? Draco you took me on this journey with you and you are now two men short of what you had. You need everyone you can get to come with you.”

In the entire time Will has been with Draco he has never seen the man’s anger directed at him. not once. But the look he receives in response is the closest he feels he will ever get, and it scares him. genuinely. Regardless, Will holds his ground, eyes narrowed but his clutch desperate, not angry. Please, he thinks, don’t abandon me when I’ve done you the same honor.

"I took you because you refused to stay when I told you," Draco answers - more angry than truly allowed for logic. His back is a rigid line of displeasure, his eyes narrow - but he is not as angry with Will as he is with himself for letting the man come this far in the first place. There is one coin to bring them in, and no coin to bring them out.

He reaches out and covers Will's hand, gently, and then he dislodges it. "I have never insisted you obey me before, but this time I will. Remember your place."

The words are harsher than he intended, and Draco regrets them the instant he has said them, but he draws himself up keeps his eyes forward. He would rather have Will angry and hurt and alive than happily following him to death. "I cannot afford the distraction."

If it came to it, and he had to choose between defending their best hope of getting out again - Perseus, the best hope for Argos itself - and defending Will, he knows where he would go instinctively. Even the hesitation would be catastrophic. "You'll stay."

Will’s brow furrows at the words, so harshly spoken and so unlike Draco in tone and meaning. He lets go when he’s pushed gently away and swallows. He refuses to tell him that he’s terrified he’ll never see him again, that the reason he went initially was for that same fear.

“I know my place,” Will replies quietly, anger still pressing his eyes to narrow, and now he’s hurt more than angry, wanting to pull Draco back and soothe him, ask him nicely, negotiate quietly, logically, away from prying eyes and attention they are slowly garnering. He doesn’t want this to end in anger, but at the same time he can’t deny that he’s angry.

“But how do you propose to make me stay?” he breathes, “You’re taking Io into the pits of hades without a second thought.”

He hates bringing Io into this, she is a far more skilled fighter than he, and he has grown close enough to consider her a friend. Perhaps it’s for her, too, that he wants to go.

"Io is Perseus' responsibility," Draco answers, quickly, suggesting how much he thinks of bringing her that far into danger as well, skilled though she is. "We have seen how he takes care of those he is responsible for." It was a low blow, unkind to how far Perseus had grown on the journey, unkind to Io herself, but the point is not one that will sway Draco. He finally looks back at Will, and his expression softens - just a hair. 

“Will you tether me down?”

"Will you force me to?" Draco asks in return, his tone is just as earnest - though he is still on the edge of anger. He may not be swayed from his decision, but he could be persuaded to be a little more calm. He turns finally, places his palm flat on Will's chest, and insists with posture and expression. "Stay and it will give me something to return to." 

It is not far from the truth. He would fight harder with Will waiting for him here, and with less inhibitions. He does not want to leave him behind, but he would not bend on this. He does not suggest that if ultimately they fail, someone will need to take word back to Argos, he does not expect it will matter.

Will bites his tongue from saying ‘yes’ in a fit of childish anger. He bites it harder from asking if Draco is sure he’ll return to him. he doesn’t want to think about it. he looks down at the hand pressing against him and shakes his head, letting his eyes close before squeezing them closed tighter. Why had this happened? Why had Will allowed the man to take him from that brothel, why had he not run away when he’d been tailing him home, when he’d had the chance to?

“I can fight.” He tries again, but there’s no power in it. not in that statement. It was a lie. He couldn’t fight like a soldier, he could only endure, which was what Draco was asking him, in essence, to do. To endure. And wait. 

After a moment he steps back, out of the touch, tries to twist his arm out of the grip Draco settles on him to keep him close and finds himself struggling in earnest, anger and fear and hatred of situations outside of their control finally bubbling over enough to return Will to the fight and flight of his life in the brothel before Draco had tamed him. he struggles, thrashes against the man in front of him, snarls when the soldier tries to pull him away, back to where they had been, closer to himself.

Draco has to lift his other hand and get it onto Will's other shoulder, and finally he pulls the boy against him, lets him fight and rage however he likes, and Draco endures it, lifts his head when Will tries to bash him under the chin with the top of his own, deals with the scratches that lay themselves into his forearms, the thrashing and kicks against his shins. Will is all fight in that moment, independent of simply proving that he can. He is fighting himself as much as Draco, and Draco endures it. He knows Will is likely to be in for worse, waiting as he is.

"I know you can," he says, his voice low and rough. "But not a gorgon. No one but Perseus - or so the Gods would have us believe."

When his words only gain him another kick he gives Will a quick shake to snap him out of it - not so hard as he might, but enough to catch his attention, his hands holding hard enough to Will's biceps now that they might leave marks under his thumbs, and then in the instant Will stops launching his ferocity at Draco, fighting him in place of the situation, he pulls their mouths together. He does not care who might see.

Will whines. It’s a loud, angry noise and his anger and his fight transfers from his entire body to the one point of contact. If it was meant as a comfort, Will does not take the kiss as such. It’s a rough and heated thing, more bite than softness, but Draco doesn’t let him break it, pushing back just as hard. And then, Will just lets him. stops struggling enough to be pushed back, to manage a few steps before resuming his thrashing.

His hands don’t move to harm, but to tug at clothing, press against leather and cotton and bronze, fumbling and digging at the fabric to get it away, but not letting him far enough away to remove the irksome clothing himself. Will no longer cares if this is illogical. He no longer cares if people see, if they ask, if they intervene. He has enough power over the man to have come this far, to have riled and fought against him and gotten nothing but soothing hands in turn. It means something, even if it won’t tomorrow.

Draco’s hands are as desperate against him as Will’s are in his struggling. Pressing and pushing and tugging things free, until he pulls back, drawing in air in quick deep breaths, and pushes Will down. And he goes with a struggle again, renewing his fight until Will’s back is against the earth and Draco’s body above his holding him down.

“Don’t,” another whine, fringed just enough with anger to know what he means. Don’t go. don’t die. Don’t let them take you. “Just… don’t.”

And the struggle shifts, abruptly, from fighting against Draco to fighting to pull him in.

This anger turns quickly to desperation, and Draco does not know if it's a better option. It's certainly not a solution. But, with his hands against warm skin, pulling Will close against him, he doesn't much care. He presses their mouths together again, trying to express that he understands, that he knows what Will is feeling to some extent.

He wishes he could say that he wouldn't go. That he wouldn't die - but all he could do was his best. As a man, as a human untouched by godlike power, he had only his life to offer in service or sacrifice. It didn't mean he'd be any less determined to get out again.

Draco does not stop kissing him for longer than a space of a few seconds, his hands gripping at his shoulders, and then trailing down, in lines along his back as Will arches up into it. He grips possessively at Will's hips, then his thighs, then just pulls the man against him for long enough to echo his own words back, from not so long ago.

"Don't worry so much about me."

Then it is just desperation, seeking out the cords holding Draco’s armor around his chest so he could rid the man of the plate completely. He presses his hand to the center of his chest, as Draco had done to him to calm him, and splays his fingers, feeling the heart beat there, alive and real. It’s the helplessness, Will knows, more than anything else at all. It’s the knowledge that they don’t know, that Will can’t safely say he will wait and Draco will meet him. this is hades, it is beyond any man’s comprehension.

Much as he wants to echo Draco’s words as the man had echoed his, Will can’t find it in himself to be able to, so he stays relatively silent, panting out quick breaths against Draco’s throat until his head is tilted up again and he holds his breath to kiss the man again.

Will doesn’t know what he wants, beyond the man to stay. But even then he can feel the tendrils of guilt sliding over his skin at the very idea. If he succeeded in getting Draco to stay, to keep him from entering hades to keep him from fighting and completing this quest, Will would hate him and hate himself for it. it’s the worst sort of loop they’re caught in, and the more Will understands that the harder it is to ask for something.

He gasps when they break, and rests back against the ground. Draco’s hands are hot against his skin but they haven’t moved beyond holding his thighs. Will brings up a hand and covers his eyes, letting the dark soothe him for a moment. Then he swallows and lets it drop away.

“Distract me then.” He asks.

There would be very little comfort in the promise that Draco would make his life cost dearly if he had to lose it. What comfort he can offer is this - his assurance that he would fight as hard as he could. He wasn't incompetent by any stretch - he at least had that in his favor.

Draco lifts himself until he can cast an arm out for their blanket, which he pulls over them for the illusion of privacy. It smells of dust and faintly like the old crushed grass in the forest not so long ago. He pulls it over them to the shoulders, and leans down to kiss Will again, wrapping it beneath his head and shoulders a little to give his skin some relief from the exhausted dust of the area.

They would both need distracting, he thought - and sleep, too. He closes his teeth gently at Will's collarbone, and then reaches beneath him and pulls the blanket a little tighter around Will, as if to bind him in place with it. He reaches between them then pushes his rough palm gently up Will's thigh, first one, then the other, pushing his knees apart with insistence - but he pins Will's hands down to his sides when he tries to lift them to help, gives him a warning glance, suggesting he be still.

And Will stays, returning the warning glance with a narrow-eyed look, but saying nothing. He lets himself be spread open, arches into the touches he gets, turns his head a little towards camp to see that no one is watching them, even if they had been before. Their backs turned, voices quiet in discussion. Perseus has his head resting on his palm, staring at the ground in thought. Io is gone, again.

A gentle slap against skin brings Will back to the present, looking at the man above him almost apologetically before steeling his gaze again. his hands haven’t moved, one curled in the blanket, the other in the dust at his side where the blanket doesn’t quite reach. He wants so much to push, to drag his hands over Draco’s shoulders and to his hair, pull it and make him remember… but he can see, through the weave of the blanket that allows the light through, that he has left his marks accordingly. Deep red things on Draco’s arms that he’d carved there in anger and the man had let him.

He feels rough fingers circle his hole but not push in, gasps quietly as they move up to caress his balls, then up further still to circle around him and start a rough quick rhythm. Will bucks up, forgetting for a moment to lay still, and brings his hand up to rest behind Draco’s ear. In a moment, the delicious friction stops, and Will’s hand is once again pinned to the ground, Draco leaning closer to him, tilting his head as though to ask if he needs to make this point any clearer. Will lets out a breath and licks his lips before shaking his head once, curling his fingers down just enough to brush the back of Draco’s palm.

He’ll stay still. Obedient. And in the morning, just as obediently, he will stay here.

He lifts his head enough to kiss the captain again, not a gentle, fleeting thing, and moans quietly when Draco touches him again.

As much as he had corrected Will lifting his hands and moving to help, Draco does not chastise him for the kiss. He strokes Will twice more, and then lifts his hand away, pulls back from the kiss and presses two of his fingers between Will's teeth against his tongue, feeling the rough slide of it against the rough pads of his fingers.

He knows how that mouth feels against his own skin, knows he could take Will apart very easily with his mouth, but instead he keeps it simple - keeps it to this. When he is satisfied with how slick his fingers are he returns to stroking Will's length, his other hand lifting one of Will's above his head, pinning it and leaving it, before he takes the other to match, and holds both the shifting wrists together.

Most of his weight is on his knees, but he is stretched full body over Will as he strokes, letting his grip grow faintly tighter, keeping the pace rough, quick - merciless as his grip on the boy's wrists and without any sign that today he was going to take his time or allow any retaliation. Will was going to lay back and take it, and as he begins to lift his voice - protest or warning or both, Draco only speeds his pace until it is almost as much friction as slide, but Will is too close to not go over now.

Will's sounds turn to pleasure on the edge of pain, as he arches his back and comes with Draco stroking him over and through, loosening his grip at last as it grows slicker with the boy's release, but he only stops the motion when he knows it will be on the edge of soreness for Will.

It's unusual, new, to be held down in such a way and denied everything but his voice. And Will is unsure whether or not the change is one he enjoys or is frightened of. There is just as much anger in Draco as there is in Will, just as much desperation, and the man is far more dangerous. He whimpers when the touch becomes too much, too harsh against the sensitive skin, and sighs when Draco releases him. He wonders, for a moment, if his taunt was taken seriously. If Draco means to incapacitate him enough to make it difficult to walk and follow him that way. Somehow the thought makes him laugh, a low, quiet sound that grows to something a little more desperate, not quite hysterical. Will has enough control of himself now to simply skirt the edge.

"You won't allow me to return the favor?" he asks quietly, keeping his tone low enough to be just heard by them. No one else needs to know or hear, they know enough, and what they say to each other is theirs alone. "Or is this how you want to remember me?"

There is no heat in the words, more a resignation. He will not follow, they both know he won't. He isn't foolish enough to risk Draco's life in such a way as to paint himself a target in a place he can't fathom. They had both known he would stay when Draco ordered him to. Will tilts his head a little and offers a small smile, chest still rising and falling with quick breaths, the blanket trapping the heat between them.

"I intend not to have to remember you for too long," Draco answers, finally seeming to find his patience again. "You can repay me on my return. And again, when Argos is safe." It may be a hollow promise, but Draco makes it anyway, and Will takes it in and tries to make what best he can of it. 

"Io says you fight better with me here." he murmurs after a moment, licking his bottom lip and eyes still on the soldier above him, wrists turning a little in the iron grip that pins them, "But you call me your distraction. What am I?"

Draco shifts and finally releases Will's wrist, considering the question - it seems he has to genuinely think about it. What they are has evolved. Draco had seen promise in Will when they'd met - promise for a pleasing diversion, promise for something that could be cultivated and save him the trouble of having to seek for what he wanted every time. But what he'd turned out had exceeded those expectations, the promise he'd seen, and his original intent.

Draco sits up, arranging himself next to Will, still sharing the blanket. After a moment, Will joins him, shoulder to shoulder, as both sit huddled beneath the blanket watching the others at the fire. 

"Far more than a distraction, as pleasurable of one as you make," Draco admits, though he isn't sure there's a definition that's fair to both of them and fits within the confines of their status. He draws a breath, lets his eyes shift upward in consideration. "I fight more strongly when there is something to lose - though I suppose all of Argos should be motivation enough."

Having more than an empty quarters to return to was a strangely powerful motivation. The notion that he wasn't sure what Will could do without him made the sensation stronger. He had made arrangements for the boy, should he not return, but he doubts they'll be satisfying. And of course they depended on Argos itself surviving - on their success.

There aren't enough words to settle that forth, so instead he simply reaches out, and settles his arm around Will's shoulders and pulls him close. "You're the reason I'll come back."

Will says nothing but leans into the touch regardless, drawing his knees up to rest his chin on them and sigh. He doesn't want to take the promise at face value, but he refuses to doubt it. He just sits, enjoying the warmth and comfort the man is offering him, and when they finally sleep, Will curls up by his side, close, and buries his face in Draco's neck, just breathing him in.

In the morning he wakes alone.

-

The area around the door to hades is dead. No plants dare to venture there to grow, no animals pick through the rocks, there is no reason to, for nothing. Will finds the silence painful, it's a terrifying and cold thing, but he doesn't move. Doesn't leave the fire the soldiers left behind, stays wrapped in the blanket he'd slept in and just watches the hole the men had entered. He doesn't know how long to wait. Doesn't allow himself to think about none of them ever coming out again, but knows that if none do, then he will die waiting. There is nothing for him at Argos but the life he had led, and there are no other cities that will take him without questions.

In the heat of the afternoon, Will ventures away to gather more wood for the night. It's twilight when he makes a nest for himself to sleep in, of any and all of the blankets left behind by the fire. At night he doesn't sleep, just feeds the fire to keep it high, keeps the knife Draco gave him close by his side just to feel the weight of it. Nothing hurts him, and nothing ventures near. By morning, no one has returned from the underworld to greet him and Will lets himself sleep until the sun is too high to do so comfortably, and he takes up his bow to give his hands something to do.

Not even birds venture here. He finds the ragged stump of an old tree, reaching laboriously upward in an agonized tangle of limbs to be his target, and when he turns it upright it dominates the dusty landscape. He misses as often as he strikes, but it is an improvement. Somewhere time becomes nothing but the rhythm of draw, aim, exhale, release. Occasionally he retrieves his arrows. 

The dark shadow that passes overhead is massive, worrying. Winged and black, and when Will looks up toward the setting sun the shape is black and unusual, a monstrous array of limbs and odd shapes on two clear outstretched wings, black with silhouette. 

He draws his arrow to the ready and tries to find an aim, but the clear belling sound of a horse's whinny stays his hand, and though it is momentarily terrifying as the creature drops from the sky practically into the camp, he realizes quickly that it is the Pegasus - that the oddness of shape was not only from Perseus sitting upright but the heavy shape draped behind the wings, over the animal's rump. 

It is unmoving, with perhaps an inch of thick arrow shaft protruding - nearly the diameter of Will's thumb - from the back of the familiar bronze armor. The plate itself makes it impossible to know if the man still breathes. The animal is riled by the strong smell of blood, picking its feet up and tossing its head. Perseus swings down, and Will is helping to pull Draco off of the Pegasus before he is even aware that he is moving. A groan confirms that the captain is alive, for now, and the heavy sack at Perseus' belt, suggestively shaped and still faintly writhing, is dripping blood. For this sacrifice, they are successful - at least at the moment.

"He won't make the trip to Argos," Perseus apologizes, as they lay Draco out, on his front with the blankets folded beneath his head. "But I'll come back as soon as I can - as soon as Argos is safe."

He makes no mention of the other men that had gone forth with them. With Draco returned in this condition, it left little question as to what had become of them. Perseus hesitates - as if there was something he wanted to say, as if there was something he could say, before he swings back up onto Pegasus. In that moment he should have said something, but he clearly had nothing appropriate to say. He settles for, "Io should be along shortly," before he gives a tap with his heels, an encouraging cluck, and Pegasus springs into the air to carry him off and see the adventure through. 

Will isn't listening anymore, doesn't even turn his head. He's vaguely aware that Perseus has left when he feels the wing-beats of the Pegasus rile up dust from the ground around them, the flames of the fire dancing frantically before settling as well. All Will can see is the man in front of him, his eyes closed and teeth tight in a grimace of pain. His breathing is irregular and pained, occasional moans escaping him when it becomes too much to stay quiet as he is. And Will has no idea what to do. Has never faced something like this before. He swallows, hard, and reaches out to draw his fingers over Draco's face gently, up to his hair, making gentle soothing sounds when he tries to shift away in pain.

"You came back," he reassures him, "Now keep your word and stay."

He knows he needs to get the arrow out of him before he can remove the armor and assess the damage, but the shaft is like nothing he's ever seen before and Will hesitates to touch it. But Draco's breathing is not evening, and his eyes haven't opened. Will sits up to look around, not finding Io to ask her for aid, not finding anyone. So he turns back, biting the inside of his lip hard to keep his panic down. The longer he waits the worse it will be, and Perseus has already told him he won't make it to Argos. At least Will can ease the pain if he dies here.

He presses the heel of his hand against his temple gently, taking a deep breath, before settling both hands on the arrow and pulling.

It takes far more effort than Will anticipates but he doesn't stop, not when it's moving, even as slowly as it is. He can't begin to imagine how much pain Draco is in, but he will not prolong it by taking his time. He grits his teeth and shifts until the arrow comes easier and then out. Will tosses it away, ignoring the blood on his hands from it, and forces his fingers to fumble on the cords holding the armor in place.

"I'm sorry, I hurt you, I know," it's like a mantra, just words spilling from Will so he has some sound at all to keep the whimpers at bay, to associate Draco's sound of pain with something else. When he pries the back plate from him Will moves around to gently roll Draco to his side, far enough to slide the front plate away and rest the man's head against his lap. It seems to make it easier to breathe though the blood seeps into the man's tunic too fast for Will to press away, but he holds the pressure regardless, offering as big a smile as he can when Draco's eyes finally open.

"We're both men of our word I guess," he says.

With the arrow out Draco seems to breathe a little easier, to finally become aware again. The last few moments he is dimly aware of, enough to know that it was Will who had helped him, and that he had been speaking almost the whole time. He had kept his promise somehow, a fact that surprised even him.

He lifts his hand to help Will stop the flow, but while the pulse of it is strong it is at least sluggish, perhaps alarmingly. But he does smile faintly, and with his free hand he reaches up to push the backs of his fingers against Will's cheek. He is glad to see Will again.

"It won't be a boast to say I came through hades for you," he attempts, in very faint humor. There is blood in his mouth, but the pain has eased some by sitting up and being still. The situation does not feel quite so dire, and Draco actually finds himself starting to chuckle, until it hurts too much. He cannot quite feel as agitated with Perseus as he might have - though the man could perhaps have taken up his god given trinkets sooner.

"We proved ourselves as men," he allows, still touching Will's cheek. "Who really needs demigods?"

Will leans into the touch. It’s familiar and warm, and makes the knowledge that he’s trying to hold Draco’s blood from seeping through his fingers seem less grim. He returned, he got this far. They didn’t need Argos. He takes his hand carefully and brushes his lips over the knuckles before pressing it with Draco’s other against the wound as he removes his own.

When Io appears, a time later, she is pale herself, and moving slowly with care. By then, Will has gathered enough to get water heating over the fire, in one of the cooking pots. She takes in the situation with the captain, laid flat but watching with eyes that are mostly alert, and his hand clamped over the hole in his stomach.

"We must be the survivors," she allows, with some humor as to the notion, and then a wince. From her belt, she pulls a small bag, and offers some of the paper wrapped contents to Will. "We can share. Add half of that, then prepare another pot with the other half. How bad is he?"

Will doesn’t miss the wince, but takes the herbs offered to brew before moving to find another pot with the abandoned bags at the camp. It’s much harder to approach them now that Will knows their owners won’t return for them. Before, there was still an inkling of hope that they would come back, complaining about the battle, reliving some of it to remember they were alive, laughing as they had on the scorpion after the fight…

“I pulled an arrow from him,” Will says, “But he won’t stop bleeding.”

His tone is calm. He has resigned himself to the fact that he will watch Draco die, but at least it will be with the knowledge that he was there, that he had done everything in his power to make it less painful for him. He removes the first pot from the fire, setting it in the dust and putting the next on to warm, and watches Io nod her understanding before sinking to the ground in position far too graceless for a woman of her standing.

“How bad are you?” he asks gently, casting his eyes back to Draco before crouching by Io to ease her hand away from her stomach where she clings to it. neither say a word when the damage is revealed. They are, perhaps, just as bad as the other, and Will feels his heart beat faster at the knowledge that he could lose the two people closest to him on this quest, if not his life. He takes a deep breath and presses the back of his wrist to his eye to try and gather himself again. he lets it out slowly when he feels Io’s gentle hand on his shoulder.

“What can I do?” he doesn’t look up but he lets his hand fall away, “What can I possibly do against something like this?”

She pulls herself to her feet and presses her hand back over her wound. Io has lived long enough that the thought of dying is no longer one of deprivation or denial of what might be. She is still - as most mortals are - afraid of the concept, but it is no longer that abject terror. The smile she offers Will is reassuring.

"A little optimism may carry us far," she suggests. Her wound, at least, is not through and through. She tests the temperature of the first pot and finds the water appropriately hot. "And we can try cauterization to ease the bleeding at least."

She avoids mention of the damage done within Draco - the arrow had been a wicked, barbed thing, with a broad tip - the wound in Draco's back attested to the trauma within, but she did not give up hope for either of them. "If we can keep infection out, the fact that he is still alive now may count for something." 

And the fact he had something to live for. "Soak the bandages in the second pot, and bring this one with us. Let's see what we can do." It may be nothing, but they would both feel better to be trying. She reaches for him, puts her hand on his shoulder before she moves toward where the captain lays. "We have saved Argos, at least. Perseus will not fail now." It's a small comfort, Io knows, but it is something.

Will nods, eyes on Draco before he gives Io a very small smile and goes about following her instructions. He rips one of the shirts left behind into strips and sets them into the pot over the fire, where the water is still warming and lets the herbs seep into them. The fact that Draco is alive doesn’t count as something to Will, it counts for far more. He can see the man is suffering, but he’s conscious and quiet and lays still when Io’s gentle hands move to shift his from the wound and look at it.

“Will,” her voice is quiet but it’s not one without hope, she doesn’t turn away from Draco, “I need you to put his knife into the fire for me. we need the blade to be red to cauterize the wound.”

Will blinks a moment, not understanding, before it dawns. And for a moment he shakes his head. He can’t cause him more pain, not like that. Io finally turns back.

“Will.”

So he moves, as he’s told, to take Draco’s sword and set it against the burning-red coals in the fire. He watches the metal heat, turns back to watch Io clean the wound as best as she can with the water from the pot beside her. Draco hisses in pain, eyes closed and teeth grit. He keeps his hands curled into fists at his sides. Will wants to help him, wants his suffering to end, one way or another, because watching him in pain hurts so much more than he imagined it could.

He removes the pot from over the fire first, setting it into the dust as the other had been. Then he takes up the blade, heavy and warm, the end burning red before seeping to the dark silver by the handle. He returns to Draco’s side and kneels, turning the blade carefully to pass it to Io. She just looks at him and shakes her head.

“You have to do it.” she tries for a smile that Will does not return, “It’s not my place.”

The brightness of the blade in comparison to the pale, bloodless skin and the knowledge that it will have to be struck not just once, but twice almost make it too much. Draco lifts the torn hem of his tunic and holds it aside, wordless, eyes on the blade. 

"Soon enough just another scar," he suggests - as the one Will had run his fingers over when they'd met. This one almost obliterates the old mark, or it will, should he survive it. Draco lifts his hand and covers Will's wrist, because on the first one he can take the responsibility for his pain out of Will's hands at least.

The flat of the blade touches, sears - seals. Though first the blood bubbles and boils finally it conceals beneath the blade, and the skin blisters closed. The result is not pretty, but it is no longer gushing blood - it is red and angry but sealed. Draco only makes a sound when the air contacts the raw skin afterward. For all the sting of the burn, this was worse. 

Io bathes the wound in the hot water again, until it runs clear and clean, while Will reheats the blade. He has to steel himself to it, no one will help on the other side. Draco holds very still, but this hole is bigger - a ragged thing that the insides of do not look promising. He can see it in Io's expression too, but if anything it resolves him. Draco had come back out, maybe not under his own power, maybe not fully whole, but the least Will could do was to fight to keep him, after Draco had fought Medusa. 

Just another scar, he thinks, and pushes the blade down hard. This time, Draco does make noise, but he can hardly hear it - his own heart is pounding too hard, and he is desperately aware of the fingers curling at the sides of his own legs, pulling hard to steady himself.

He lifts the blade away and there is nothing but a ruin remaining of skin and muscle, a deep divot of burned, sealed flesh that is white with blistering but at least not bleeding, and when he becomes aware again, Io has curled her hands over his and she tries to take the blade from him. He realizes he had been alone with his hammering heart while she'd repeated the process on Draco's back, and that the man was - perhaps not fully unconscious but near to it.

He keeps hold of the blade. "Now you," he says, stubbornly, and she gives him a bland, knowing look before she sighs, and relents. She clamps leather between her teeth and whimpers, but by this point Will is steady enough that his hand does not waver. 

"It won't suit you as much," Draco observes. He has settled onto his side, as carefully as he can, his hands still coated in his own blood.

Io laughs in breathless pain, and lowers her top. "It won't be my first scar. But my most dire, certainly."

After, neither talk more than is necessary. Will follows Io’s quiet instructions to clean the wounds again and place the bandages against the sensitive skin properly before securing them. He cools the brew in the other pot and helps Draco swallow some down, after Io has drunk for herself.

It is dark by the time they settle properly for the evening, Io curling up by the fire, her eyes to the gate they’d entered and only three had returned from, Draco on his side, falling in and out of consciousness. Will doesn’t leave his side. He had managed, through the course of bandaging the man and moving him accordingly, to cut away the rest of the shirt around his wound, leaving him bare above the waist but for the blanket Will drapes over him.

The night grows later and Will keeps watch. Too scared to sleep in case his inattention will bring about the death of one of his friends. By dawn he’s exhausted, and Io places a gentle hand against his face to reassure him that she can take his place.

“Rest,” she whispers, gesturing with her chin gently that Will should lie where he wants to, “He survived the night and the fever is not high. He will sleep the day, and so should you.”

Will nods, eyes barely open and body trembling with exhaustion and residual fear and adrenaline. It takes him a few moments to find a position that will do Draco no harm; they lie face to face with Will’s head tucked just under the soldier’s chin. He wraps one arm around his side, above the wound, and up over his shoulder, hooking his fingers gently just by his neck. His other he curls by his face, and slowly allows his breathing to even out and slow to match Draco’s.

When he wakes again, it’s night time, and the man in front of him is stroking his hair. The fingers are warm against his skin, Draco is hot, sweating and his eyes are bright with pain perhaps, or simply fever. He is aware however, and for all the heat he is suffering he refuses to push Will away. 

Draco touches Will's hair, his face gently. "I woke you," he says, a little like an apology. When Will shakes his head into the touch, Draco smiles again. He does not move too much - his body has given up healing and is now simply fighting to function a little while longer. It was more than he expected to get, this chance to say goodbye at his leisure.

More than either of them had.

Before he can gather words, there is a moment of almost unawareness. A sudden void envelops them - all three, and a gap in knowledge. Perhaps it is simply that they cannot understand what occurs, one of the many things that separates man from Gods. It is only moments, but it could be millennia. And then they are whole and on their feet and home again - the three of them suddenly finding themselves in the middle of a celebrating Argos. There is the stink of blood and ocean in the air, but Perseus stands aside from the celebration below.

For a moment, they have relative privacy. 

"You can smile," Perseus observes of Draco, and he looks tired and well spattered with gore, but when Io reaches for him he straightens up. "I rejected the offer of Godhood as a reward and asked instead that they restore something greater. But perhaps now that the Gods have seen man's power, we could find a way to respect each other...?"

It's not without humor. Perseus wears the sword his father had given him at his belt, and victory like a mantle of maturity. But there is also an aura of beyond to him - not quite godlike, but heroic. 

"Perhaps they will reconsider the asking price of loyalty in the future," Draco says, and he presses the heel of his hand against the new, pink scar in his side, whole and firm beneath. "But this is a good start."

This time, when he leads the way through the crowded, celebratory streets of Argos, he has no doubt that Will is following behind him, that while everyone is so pleased to be alive, there is a brief moment where time is theirs and no one else's.

Will barely registers the city, the celebration within it. he’s disoriented from the lapse in time, confused by their location and the reasoning behind it, but when Draco leads him away he follows. This is much bigger than him, monsters and gods and saving cities. All he knows is that Draco is walking as he had walked before, strong and sure of where he’s heading, and that he’s alive.

He hadn’t missed the look the man had given him, the farewell that he had been so certain of before they ended up in Argos, and it tugged at him, pulled him along after the soldier through the crowded streets. He supposes, at least, that he can commend Perseus for being a man of his word; he had returned for them.

The works of Gods were too great or too petty to question, at the ultimate end of things. Around them the City is celebrating Perseus, celebrating the survival of their princess and selves. It does not seem to touch Draco, and in his wake, Will is untouched as well. It's a strange impossible separation, made worse by the odd twist in time, but they are undoubtedly alive. 

By the time they reach their home – the closest approximation Will supposes either have – his mind is turning over everything too quickly and he needs it to stop. He closes the door in a rush, impatient, before running a hand over the smooth skin where only moments before – by memory, perhaps not by design – there was a wound still weeping from being cauterized. Lips follow fingers and Will slips to his knees carefully, hands holding Draco in place so he can just touch him, nuzzle against the scar that he had caused; it’s overwhelming.

The skin is whole, if damaged. Draco lifts his fingers behind where Will touches with his mouth, brushes them along the surface. Though beneath it must be as if the wound had never existed.

"I'm glad they did not erase the mark," he says at last, and then curls his fingers under Will's chin to pull him up and kiss him. Perhaps it was some vanity of the gods, to suggest he shouldn't forget what they had given him, but he would more often think of Will. 

He pulls Will against him, up into a kiss that feels overdue, somehow. They are barely returned, still reeling from what had happened, but it feels past time for this. Draco's mouth is hungry, not wholly gentle, he pulls Will almost off his feet, and breaks only to make a faint apology for his enthusiasm. 

Life - as a gift - was a fairly potent aphrodisiac, it seemed.

Will brushes off the apology by reciprocation, by drawing his arms up around the man’s shoulders and standing on tiptoes to put himself back in his arms as he had been. His mind has not settled, emotions still fluttering between anguish and relief and the juxtaposition makes him dizzy. He wants to add that he’s glad they did not erase him, that they did not take Draco away after everything he did to guide Perseus to his fate. He says nothing, just presses closer and encourages the hunger and desperation.

He wants to tell him never to go campaigning again. To stay out of those politics and those meaningless wars. But it is not his place, far from his place, to suggest such a thing. so he opts to remind instead. To please Draco completely so the man is wont to leave. He doesn’t think on their future, doesn’t pretend he understands it, what they would do if the soldier stopped being a soldier, he just thinks of now, and of how closely he’s being pressed to Draco’s body, chest to thighs, and of how good that feels.

He grins, remembering Draco’s words to him, that Will could repay him his pleasure upon his return, and again when the city was safe. He pulls back, ducking his head to breathe against Draco’s chest to catch his breath.

“I owe twofold,” he says finally, tilting his head up, and he realizes that that in itself is inaccurate. Because he doesn’t feel obligated, he doesn’t feel like this is a debt to be paid. He wants to give it to him, to let Draco take from him what pleasure he wants; Will is certain it will be mutual, so different from the master and slave relationship they were meant to have.

"You owe far less than I intend to claim," Draco almost growls, but the sound is nearly playful. He pushes their mouths together again, and then finally steps back. His armor had been left at the gates of Hades, all of their packs and supplies as well, but for all the expense of bronze armor, it was a small price to pay for this chance. It leaves him with less to pull off - just the tattered remains of his tunic, which he sheds with a roll of his shoulders and leaves discarded. When he turns back, Will is watching him, the strange combination of emotions slowly fading from his features into something familiar.

“What would you do with me?”

How sweet the question was. For all the potential Draco had seen that first day when he'd brought his boy home and coaxed the start of trust from him, the results now are far beyond. He had anticipated sweetness and willingness - but there was strength too, and that was beyond value.

He considers his answer, before he reaches out to begin undressing Will as well. He hoists the tunic over Will's head, and then pulls him close, skin to warm skin, running his hands through Will's hair. "Grow old, perhaps - or at least older. Keep you close in moments when I require better judgment."

He pushes Will gently toward the bed, until his knees fold and he can sit on the familiar furs, and Draco can sink down in front of him, passing his tongue over his lips. He wants to try this with his boy's voice free, to completion, now that there is no need for their privacy to deny it from them. 

Will sits with a smile, hands still running over the skin in front of him that he can reach.

"I think I am the opposite of better judgement," he informs him, though he doubts the man minds. They had survived a journey no man was meant to survive, perhaps even experience. A test, Will hopes, the Gods won't see fit to put them through again in this lifetime. They deserved to grow older.

The promise in Draco's expression, in his entire demeanour, has Will impatient. He wants to pull the man closer, twist against him until they fit, until they're both sweaty and tired and sated and can sleep for as long as they feel the need to. Bathe, too, perhaps, but that is far from Will's mind as he finds his tongue mirroring the motion of Draco's against his own lips, a gentle movement but just as deliberate.

He tilts his head a little and waits, instead. He supposes that grateful as he is for the door, for the privacy it offers, it will be a useless barrier when Draco takes him apart.

Reaching up, Draco pushes the palm of his hand over Will's stomach, up his chest until he can push the man back gently, into a lean that will be easier on him to hold than sitting fully upright. When Will has adjusted, Draco slides his hand back down in a long line to curl around Will's cock so he can lick him hard. 

He takes his time - they have time to take - feeling the flesh fill and harden under long, slow swipes of his tongue. Will's breath first slows into longer measures as he begins to feel it, then speeds, and Draco feels his own try to match, as he leans the boy back further still and pushes his tongue against the head of Will's dick, into the slit until he tastes bitterness, and then he eases back, pushing his tongue against the roof of his mouth, just as Will begins to let his voice free. 

He keeps stroking, his grip slick with his own spit, and watches Will catch his breath, watches the eyes come open. "What can I give you?" Draco asks, pulling his tongue over his lower lip, and still tasting Will there. 

Will makes a quiet sound, like a stuttered hum, and licks his lips before pressing them together.

"Proof of life?" he tries, a weak attempt at humor but it's not quite desperate anymore. Not for the reasons it had been. He wants what Draco wanted from him, time, the chance to spend it wisely, together. He arches into the touch, spreading his legs more and drawing his knees up to open himself wider. "Give me time and give me this." he breathes finally.

"You can doubt right now?" Draco laughs, breathless, and then opens his mouth again to take him deep, between mouth and fist engulfing his cock utterly in slick heat. He pushes the flat of his tongue along the underside in a slow rhythm, and sucks until Will's noises turn helpless, until he is writhing, with one hand tangled into one of Draco's braids and the other gripping hard at the bed below him. 

Proof of life - or at least so much sensation that it was hard to deny.

Will reaches out, fingers splayed, palm up, seeking the man closer, seeking to touch him in turn, memorize him all over again, with the new scars. Will makes a needy sound when the stroking doesn't cease, when his breathing isn't allowed to still and slow but instead encouraged to draw ragged.

Then he goes up, as Will's pulling hands suddenly start to request, even though his voice is too busy forming wordless, pleasured cries. He shifts Will, gets him onto the bed fully and joins him, just as hard as he is, and only from listening and giving. They settle front to front, comfortable and easy, where they can both reach each other, so neither is deprived. 

Will is trembling, pulling Draco close with a smile he can't hide if he tried, and he laughs a quiet breathless sound against him.

"I thought you said I could repay you when you returned," he murmurs, nuzzling against him before sucking two fingers into his mouth to wet them, eyes narrowed just a little in amusement at Draco's slight intake of breath at the sight. When he slides them from between his lips his hand ventures downwards to curl around Draco's cock and start a slow teasing rhythm. It has only been two nights, less, since Draco had pinned him to the dusty earth and forced pleasure, less than two nights since he told Will he didn't want to miss him long.

The desperation would be obscene if it wasn't shared.

"I haven't yet stopped you," Draco starts, but his voice fades quickly down into a groan. He settles his hands comfortably at Will's shoulders, and watching Will, eyes mostly closed in enjoyment. "I never said you wouldn't have to assert yourself to do it."

Will leans up to kiss Draco again, not quite a coordinated gesture, but a thoroughly enjoyable one, before pulling away and gently turning the man to rest on his back. He slides down his body slowly, back arching into a pleasing bend, before pressing his lips to the head of Draco's cock, tongue still for the moment, and closing his eyes on a quiet hum.

The sensation is an unexpected one by the way Draco settles his hands into the furs beneath him and grips, but not an unpleasant one. He takes a deep breath, lets it out controlled and slow as he pushes his hips up into the sensation, but he does not demand. 

Will takes it slow, as Draco had, and it's fair payback. This revenge lacks much of the ferocity and desperation of the act it is repayment for, instead Will takes it inch by leisurely inch, teasing with only the tip of his tongue, with the hints of his voice until Draco's own is answering in frustrated growls. He is harder than he recalls being in some time, readier, and Will continues to tease.

When he looks down, with a groan, his boy is smiling up at him with the corners of his mouth upturned, deliberately withholding all but the lightest touches of his tongue and watching every affect. Draco finally shifts, rolls them both, though he doesn't make it very far - enough to get Will almost all the way onto his back and both their sides pressed into the cool of the wall as he arches his hips down for the genuine friction Will had been denying him. 

After the initial surprise at the shift, Will adjusts quickly, curling his hand around what he can't swallow and otherwise opening his throat for the sensation. It's demanding and hot and perhaps suitable payback for his teasing. He draws his free hand down to grasp Draco's balls gently, enough to feel, and almost grins when the new rhythm stutters against him for a moment. He wonders, sometimes, if Draco has forgotten where he'd bought him from, what Will had done for most of his life that he can remember. Regardless, he enjoys feeling the man's control shake apart above him.

When Draco pulls away, having had enough without his endurance completely shattering, Will gasps, a full-body arch with his head tilted back, lips dark and wet as he tries to catch his breath. He doesn't kiss Draco back so much as mouthe against him when the kiss is offered, draping his arms over the man's shoulders and allowing himself to be moved up the bed again so they're face to face and comfortable.

Will grins and hooks his legs over Draco's hips demonstratively.

"Perhaps I should be assertive more?" he suggests, voice slightly rougher than before, but they're both smiling, still caught in the knowledge of being alive and the promise of at least a few years peace to stay that way.

"Oh yes," Draco agrees, and he reaches down to pull Will's legs tighter against his hips, to bend them until he can really feel the flex. "As often as you like."

It was, after all, what he had wanted when he'd negotiated permanent ownership of Will - a boy that sought pleasure, that did not suffer it. He brushes his fingers up Will's sides, then reaches above their heads, though he leans down and distracts Will with his mouth first on one nipple, then the other, until he can come up with the jar of oil. 

"Though," he purrs, sitting up so that it's not so tight a fit between them, and hooking one of Will's knees over his shoulder instead, to leave him open to fingers that rub firmly, circle and press but do not enter. "I won't forget when you tease." 

True to his word he simply runs circles with his fingers against him, the pressure light, teasing, until Will is pushing and arching against him, demanding, and then he pushes two fingers in as asked, sudden and deep in the moment of relaxation where Will demands too much to resist.

Will whimpers at the intrusion but not from pain. His hands aren't still, touching any part of Draco they can reach and leaving red marks down his arms, tracking near the ones he'd left in anger, paling the skin before it darkens. He twists how he can - the position Draco has him in doesn't allow for much more retaliation - and arches, gives the man his moans and breathless little sounds. He knows the preparation will be thoughtful and careful, but he will be sore the next morning, wont to move and pliant in the man's arms. He supposes that's the point.

He arches hard, body tense in a moment of pleasure before he lets air escape his lungs on a groan. It's still so new, that sensation of being pressed full and given such unbelievable blinding pleasure.

"One day," he says, turning his head a little, pressing one hand low against Draco's stomach, the other curled lightly around his wrist, "I'll find a way to show you how good that feels."

"Another day," Draco suggests, because he is not averse, even as he twists his fingers again to repeat the motion, waking whimpers from deep in Will's chest, but he has lost enough patience to be truly experimental today.

When he is certain the stretch won't be painful, he withdraws his fingers, and then slicks himself. "You won't be surprised," Draco growls, in an undertone as he begins to push. "At how good this feels." When he has started, he presses the leg that isn't lifted over his shoulder up to Will's chest, to leave him open, half bent in two but it allows him to slide slow and deep into him, with one hand on Will's hip and the other tucked up behind his opposite knee for leverage and to help brace them both.

He exhales when he has finally reached depth, shows his teeth just once at how tight and good it is, how it could be worth the extra time it took when time was spare, as here. He leans closer, though it compresses Will some, and kisses him when he begins to move, and though the motions are shallow, each leaves him sunk deep and pushing deeper, so they can both feel it. 

Will is tense with pleasure, the slow push was tight but not harsh enough to be painful, and the way he’s being held open is obscene, leaving him bared completely to Draco’s eyes and hands. He holds his breath as he’s kissed, eyes closed tight against the onslaught of sensation accompanying the shift. The thrusts strike close but not quite where Will wants them and the taunting is relentless.

“Oh,” it’s a gasp, breathless and nearing desperate. He licks his lips and turns his head to pant quietly against Draco’s when the man moves closer again. It’s at once intimate and not, and Will feels sweat lightly slick his skin as the pace continues, shallow and quick, until moans come louder and more frequent from his lips, and only then does Draco relent, pulling out farther before pushing in, slowly the pace but striking exactly where Will wants.

He doesn’t quiet howl at the feeling but it’s a close thing. his hands scrabble against the skin in front of him until he finds enough leverage to tilt Draco’s face up and press their lips together in a sloppy desperation. When Draco strikes his prostate again, it takes everything Will has to hold back. There has never been a pressure with them for Will to ‘serve’. Regardless, he finds more often than not that he would rather wait, push himself to the limits if his endurance before succumbing. And so he does now, letting his leg slide from Draco’s shoulder so it rests in the crook of his arm instead, the angle remains the same but it’s easier to breathe. 

Will arches, head back and lips parted on a silent moan of want, before he clenches his muscles hard and rocks his hips down.

Shifting his grip higher, Draco helps hold Will into the arch, gives him leverage to move and be moved against, pleased by how free his voice is, pleased that they are here and whole. They are both close, Will pushing them both in a rush, and Draco allows it. He lifts one hand from Will's hips, and curls his fingers nearly as tightly around Will's length as Will is holding his muscles tight around Draco, growling.

It's not at the same instant that they go over, with even Draco's voice joining undertone to Will's loud cry, but it's shortly enough after that Will follows him that they can lean down together, Draco unpinning Will's legs so he can straighten them. 

He keeps Will pulled close against him though, close and tight as if afraid he might fade, as if this might fade the instant they'd finished it. When he presses his mouth, open, against Will's pulse gently and feels it beating in his neck, panting for breath as they both are and drifting in a pleasant, pleased haze... it feels complete somehow. Like the marks echoing the earlier ones on his arms, this contentment calls back further.

Draco pulls Will possessively against him, and doesn't require words to suggest how they complete each other in unexpected ways. It's evidenced enough in that they have both survived.

Will groans quietly when his muscles relax, blood flowing back to them now that he can shift more comfortably. His arms drape over the soldier’s shoulders comfortably and he drags his fingers through the braids to rest his palm splayed against his scalp, just holding him close.

It takes a long time for their breathing to ease and by that point both are drifting, eyes half closed and muscles lax in rest. Will hums and arches a little to shift himself higher on the bed, just enough to have Draco rest his head against his chest now as he draws one knee up and slides his free hand over the new scar on the man’s back.

“We should bathe,” he murmurs, but doesn’t shift to move them. After a moment he smiles, licking his lips, and ducks his head enough to be able to whisper in Draco’s ear, “Perhaps you can finally bend me over something, you’ve had me every other way.”

Draco is nearly asleep for the first suggestion, but the second brings his eyes open and up, considering. His arms pull Will almost instinctively tighter, before he yawns. On the subject of bathing, he has no opinion - if the gods had not cared to scour them clean in their interference, Draco cannot be bothered to care all that much yet.

As to the other, Draco gives half a stretch. "Remind me when we wake in a few hours," he suggests, and his hold turns from possessive to a lazy stroking along Will's sides and back. "In fact, remind me as often as you like."

It may not be quite true that he's had Will every other way, but they have time enough to discover new things, and revisit old. Draco yawns again, by all appearances exhausted. But as they're on the verge of sleep again, he shifts them, leans in to kiss Will back to being fully awake and suggests, "Or find something comfortable now," because having time was not an excuse for not occasionally being in a rush, "and arrange yourself on it."

Will doesn’t move for a long time, lips stretched in a smirk as he considers the command. Then he parts them, with just the tip of his tongue and lets out a gentle breath. With his eyes down he shifts enough to slide free of the warm comfortable weight of the soldier above him, and without a word moves to comply.


End file.
